What’s In a Name?
In 1991, Frank X Walker learned he did not exist.
That year, a reading in Lexington, Kentucky, featured four authors from the bluegrass state and poet Nikky Finney. Dubbed “The Best of Southern Writing,” the reading changed the course of Walker’s life. The original title of the event, “The Best of Appalachian Writing,” had been altered to accommodate Finney, a South Carolina native. Finney, who is African-American, was the sole voice of color in the lineup.
Walker, then a budding poet and an experienced playwright and visual artist, knew African-American writers from Kentucky should have been represented. He also felt the name change from “Appalachian” to “Southern” required an explanation. Walker’s disappointment led him to Webster’s Dictionary and, to his dismay, a definition that mentioned “white residents from the mountains.” The artist wasn’t white, but he was from Kentucky, Danville to be exact. Didn’t his work matter too? Wasn’t he, like his white peers, creating in the great shadow of the mountains? This definition of Appalachian would not suffice, and Walker was moved to a moment of clarity. He would create his own word that described people of African descent from the Appalachian region: Affrilachian.
It was the stereotype of an all white and poor Appalachia that the word Affrilachian would fight. A 13-state expanse reaching as far north as New York and, ironically, including Finney’s Southern birthplace, the Appalachian region is more than Kentucky, more than rural, and more than one ethnicity can define. The word Affrilachian would stand as a reminder of the diversity of the region. Don’t’ call it reactionary, call it revolutionary.
Before that momentous day, the beginning of the group that would become the Affrilachian Poets was assembled, but nameless. The University of Kentucky’s Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center became its spiritual home, and Walker’s role as program coordinator made it a popular hang out for the student body which included the poets. In the center’s back room that was part library, part study space, part escape from the outside world, the poets shared new creations. A nearby elevator was also utilized, with the writers gathering in the cramped space, turning off the power, and sharing their latest works. Soon, Walker brought the idea of the name the Affrilachian Poets to the group who adopted the moniker with pride. Finney, then a new English faculty hire at UK, was welcomed to the fold, and the once nameless group of poets and friends had a new identity and a new sense of purpose. In addition to Walker and Finney, founding members included Kelly Norman Ellis, Crystal Wilkinson, Gerald Coleman, Ricardo Nazario-Colon, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Daundra Scisney-Givens, and Thomas Aaron. They were soon joined by Paul Taylor, Bernard Clay, Shana Smith, and Miysan T. Crosswhite.
Milestones
The importance of Finney’s arrival in Lexington cannot be overstated. The APs and the campus at large rushed to her creative writing classes. Finney encouraged her students to make time to write and not wait for the muse to visit. Her teaching dynamic and the collective’s early embrace of revision through regular poetry workshops were a perfect match. The creative high marked the beginning of a series of celebrated publications that continues to this day.
1994
Ellis appears in the anthology Sisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry (HarperPerrenial), a volume that includes such notables as Alice Walker, Lucille Clifton, and then U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove.
1995
Finney publishes Rice (Sister Vision Black Women and Women of Colour Press), her second poetry collection and a Pen Open Book Award winner.
1997
In a coup for the poets as a collective, Finney, Walker, and Ellis appear in Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry (Syracuse University Press). That year, Finney’s novel Heartwood is published by University of Kentucky Press as part of its New Books for New Readers series.
1998
After serving as Assistant Director of Purdue University's Black Cultural Center and Writer in Residence and before beginning his tenure at KY's Governor's School for the Arts, Frank X edits the now out of print Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium: An Anthology of Contemporary Midwestern Poetry. This collection features work from established writing groups like Purdue's Haraka Writers, Indianapolis' Midtown Writers Group, East St. Louis' Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club and the Affrilachian Poets. The collection opened with an introductory poem by Kelly Norman Ellis and includes work by AP members: Bernard Clay, Ricardo Nazario Colon, Ellis, Nikky Finney, Lerin Kol, Jude McPherson, Daundra Scisney-Givens, Shanna Smith, Walker and Crystal Wilkinson.
2000
Wilkinson publishes her first volume, the short story collection Blackberries, Blackberries (The Toby Press). Walker’s first poetry collection Affrilachia (Old Cove Press) is published the same year, promoting the idea of Affrilachia as both a physical and spiritual place that was previously undefined and unrealized.
2001
The year of the poets’ 10th year as a collective, the Covington, Kentucky-based Media Working Group releases “Coal Black Voices.” With Walker serving as a consulting producer with producer/directors Fred Johnson and Jean Donohue, the documentary captures the APs in their element: weaving verses of family, social struggle, and the rural and urban landscapes that comprise their seam of the African Diaspora. “Voices” is broadcast on PBS, and, much like the poets themselves, becomes an educational tool for understanding the diversity of the Appalachian region.
2002
Wilkinson wins the Chaffin Literary Award for Blackberries, Blackberries, and follows that critical success with the publication of the “short story cycle” Waterstreet (The Toby Press).
2003
A banner year for the collective. Ellis publishes her first volume of poetry Tougaloo Blues (Third World Press). Walker turns to persona poetry for his second volume Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (University of Kentucky Press). The author provides the voice for York, an oft ignored historical figure and slave of William Clark who played an invaluable role in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Wilkinson receives nominations for the Orange Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Water Street. Finney’s third volume of poetry, The World is Round (InnerLight Publishing) is released.
2004
Although the APs had occasionally offered membership to a select number of individuals—as was the case with Dan Wu, Jude McPherson, and L’Erin Kol— membership had never been offered to an entirely new generation of poets. During the summer’s Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts session, a three-week program for the state’s most talented high school artists, 11 new Affrilachians join the fold: Sam Fitzpatrick, Asha French, Christine and Tania James, Parneshia Jones, Amanda Johnston, Shayla Lawson, Tony Rawlings, Bianca Spriggs, Stewart Stone, and Hao Wang. This new generation, dubbed AP2, includes several GSA alums. Walker, a former executive director of the Governor’s School, made the most of his years with the program by not only leading a dedicated faculty in the education of young artists, but keeping those artists in mind when the APs needed new blood. The literary honors continue in 2004, and Buffalo Dance wins the Lillian Smith Book Award.
2005
Walker is awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship in Poetry. The $75,000 honor paves the way for a new page in the literary legacy of the APs.
2006
With a number of the original APs having taught at the Governor’s School and many of its new members as graduates, the group returns to the program in the summer of 2006 to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Crystal Good, Ellen Hagan, Natasha Marin, Marta Miranda, and Stephanie Pruitt receive full membership. The summer’s anniversary celebration also includes a proclamation by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government declaring June 17 Affrilachian Poets Day. A plaque memorializing the elevator where some the APs first “poetry moments” took place is dedicated at UK.
Full Circle
Fifteen years after learning the word Appalachian only spoke for a portion of the region’s residents, Walker has found vindication in black and white.
Affrilachian is now an entry in the Oxford American Dictionary, second edition. The word is also referenced in The Encyclopedia of Appalachia, a sign that Walker’s gift to the English language is serving its intended purpose. His Lannan Award Fellowship is helping start his new publishing venture, Duncan Hill Press, and a periodical, PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture. Duncan Hill Press will serve as a platform for up-and-coming writers and feature a sample of these voices in the forthcoming anthology America! What’s My Name? PLUCK!, which takes its name from a Finney poem of the same title which appeared in RICE, will feature poetry, prose, and visual art from artists of color in the Appalachian region. The journal is scheduled to debut in the spring of 2007.
~ History gathered by Mitchell L. H. Douglas
