Podcasts about turn me loose the unghosting

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation.Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?”While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker's poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry. Winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective, the oldest continuously running predominantly African American writing group in the country. He is a Professor of English, and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program the University of Kentucky. You can find the host, Sullivan Summer, online, on Instagram, and at Substack, where she and Professor X continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews Affrilachian poet, educator, and children's book author Frank X. Walker about his latest children's book A IS FOR AFFRILACHIA. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews Affrilachian poet, educator, and children's book author Frank X. Walker about his latest children's book A IS FOR AFFRILACHIA. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/eliot-parker/support

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews Affrilachian poet, educator, and children's book author Frank X. Walker about his latest children's book A IS FOR AFFRILACHIA. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival.

In his book, "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," Frank X Walker explores the void left by the horrific slaying of the civil rights activist - taking on the voices of Evers' family, Evers' killer, and others surrounding the events in Mississippi in 1963. Join Kentucky's Poet Laureate for an evening of poetry.

In his book, "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," Frank X Walker explores the void left by the horrific slaying of the civil rights activist - taking on the voices of Evers' family, Evers' killer, and others surrounding the events in Mississippi in 1963. Join Kentucky's Poet Laureate for an evening of poetry.

in which I ACTUALLY TO SOMEONE ELSE HOLY FUCK! WE EVEN READ POETRY AT EACH OTHER!!! twitter: @ASargusKlein Breezewood: http://asargusklein.wixsite.com/poetry kleinprince: https://kleinprince.bandcamp.com/ POEMS IN BIG LUCKS: https://www.biglucks.com/journal/andrew-sargus-klein A NOTE: Andrew talks about one of his favorite books, "Sara Or the Existence of Fire," but misnames the author, Moss Angel Witchmonstr (formerly Sarah June Woods). He deeply regrets the error. other things referenced: a suuuuper brief guide to the New York poets - https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-new-york-school Frank O'Hara - http://www.frankohara.org/writing.html Kenneth Koch - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/kenneth-koch Robert Creeley - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/robert-creeley some poems from Blood Dazzler by Patrica Smith - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96922274 A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman - http://www.dianeackerman.com/a-natural-history-of-the-senses-by-diane-ackerman Sara Or the Existence of Fire by Moss Angel Witchmonstr - http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/Default.aspx?bookid=9780982989692 short interview about Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers by Frank X. Walker - http://www.npr.org/2013/12/26/256869886/poetry-uncovers-legacy-of-medgar-evers-50-years-later interview with Marie Howe (What the Living Do) - http://www.npr.org/2014/04/25/306528499/poet-marie-howe-on-what-the-living-do-after-loss Song by Bridget Pegeen Kelly - https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/song Annals of the Former World by John McPhee - http://us.macmillan.com/annalsoftheformerworld/johnmcphee/9780374518738 Smells Like Content by The Books - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNArEfBKdc

The second reader for the Fall 2015 Axton Reading series at the University of Louisville. Frank X Walker reads both new work and from his collection Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers. The reading is followed by a Q&A. October 8th, 2015.

Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evars has garnered Kentucky's Poet Laureate, Frank X Walker, a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He calls this book of 49 poems his finest work to date, and says it has an educational component along with its poetry. "The initial motivation was based on having a conversation with my students and finding out that they had no idea who Medgar Evers was." We spoke to Walker on this week's show about his life, his work, and what it means to be Affrilachian. Our Juicy Fruit segment this week looks at the man who got in trouble for paying too much child support, the chef who wants to ban babies from his restaurant, and CeCe McDonald's release from prison. And our very own Jaison Gardner filled us in on his new column, In Visible Ink, appearing every other week in LEO Weekly!

In his most recent book, "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," Frank X Walker explores the void left by the horrific slaying of the civil rights activist - taking on the voices of Evers' family, Evers' killer, and others surrounding the events in Mississippi in 1963. Join Kentucky's Poet Laureate for an evening of poetry.

In his most recent book, "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," Frank X Walker explores the void left by the horrific slaying of the civil rights activist - taking on the voices of Evers' family, Evers' killer, and others surrounding the events in Mississippi in 1963. Join Kentucky's Poet Laureate for an evening of poetry.