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Links and Resources

Affrilachian Poets Links

• The Coal Black Voices web site is a rich source of information about the featured writers. It includes streaming video of the poets reading, texts of selected works, links, and downloadable teaching materials.
• Read about the history of the Affrilachian Poets group and learn about other writers included in it at the Affrilachian Poets web site.
• Affrilachian poets with web sites include Frank X Walker and Crystal Wilkinson.
• With the formation of the Affrilachian Poets, a new word was coined. Word Spy defines the term and discusses its origins.

Affrilachian Poets on bookclub@ket

Books by several of the Affrilachian Poets have been featured on bookclub@ket. Visit the site for discussions of the books streamed online along with a variety of other features.

Nikky Finney

• The page for Rice includes an interview with the author as well as an excerpt from a reading from the KET production In Performance at the Governor’s Mansion.
• Finney’s book The World Is Round was featured in the 2005 Poetry Special.

Frank X Walker

• The page for Walker’s first book of poetry, Affrilachia, includes streaming video of an interview with the author.
• His book Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York was also featured in the 2005 Poetry Special.
• Walker was also one of the writers who discussed the legacy of James Still in a special bookclub tribute to the late writer. The site includes a video reading of “Kentucke” by Walker.

Crystal Wilkinson

• Visit the Blackberries, Blackberries page for a video interview with the author.
• The Water Street page includes a link to the Utne Reader discussion of the short story collection.
• Like Frank X Walker, Wilkinson says she was influenced by James Still and is featured in the special bookclub presentation James Still’s Legacy.

Visit the bookclub@ket site to learn about books by these other African-American writers from Kentucky:

• William Wells Brown
• bell hooks
• Gayl Jones
• ZZ Packer
• Sheila Williams

Other bookclub@ket books of interest:

• Passing for Black by Wade Hall
• Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs (This book also has a connection to another work featured on Kentucky Muse: Elizabeth Orndorff’s play Death by Darkness, spotlighted in Murder, They Wrote.)
• Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund
• Evil Necessity: Slavery and Political Culture in Antebellum Kentucky by Harold D. Tallant
• Modern Medea by Steven Weisenburger

Resources

• PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture is published three times yearly. The second issue, published in 2007, included several articles; a short story by Crystal Wilkinson; and poems by Samantha Ragland, Adrian Matejka, and others, including excerpts from Ringing Ear Review. To subscribe, contact PLUCK!, Subscription Department, P.O. Box 14057, Cincinnati, OH 45250-0057.
• The University Press of Kentucky catalog includes a wide variety of nonfiction and fiction titles under the heading African American Studies.