Posted on Fri, Jun. 30, 2006

email this

print this

reprint or license this

Affrilachian Poets mark 15th year

BLACK WRITERS GROUP HELD FIRST READINGS IN ELEVATOR

By Art Jester And Elizabeth Troutman

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS

It wasn't popular to read poetry in public places when Ricardo Nazario-Colon was a student in Latin American studies at the University of Kentucky in 1991.

So the Puerto Rican native began sharing "poetry moments" with a circle of friends in the confined space of the Student Center elevator. His first recitation was scribbled on a loose-leaf sheet of paper the night before he read aloud.

"We were learning more about each other, and all of a sudden writing became the cool thing to do," Nazario-Colon said.

Years later, Colon and other writers in the group became known as the original Affrilachian Poets.

The poets will reunite today in celebration of their 15th anniversary by unveiling a plaque at 1 p.m. in the Student Center elevator where they gathered during their college years.

The celebration continues with a poetry reading by Gerald Coleman, one of the founders, and poetry readings by students and alumni of the Governor's Scholars Program at Transylvania University. New members will be inducted into the group at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning this evening.

Nazario-Colon, now executive director for Multicultural and Academic Affairs at UK, said it is important to recognize that Appalachia, which expands from New York to Mississippi, includes a diverse population of people.

"You have Native Americans, African-Americans, even now you have Latinos," he said. "Appalachia has never been monocultural."

There are more than 30 members of the group today. Nazario-Colon said most of the original members are now college professors or administrators.

Frank X Walker is the best known member and the creator of the term "Affrilachia." Walker said he came up with the term after talking to two author-friends with Appalachian roots, Gurney Norman and Anne Shelby. They realized that Appalachians, white and black, shared cultural values about family, kinship and food -- "what our families had in common," Walker said.

"This made us more alike than different," he said.

The term caught on. It is now in the Oxford American Dictionary, second edition, and it appears in several entries in the new Encyclopedia of Appalachia.

Walker, who served as program coordinator of UK's Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center, remembers the poets' readings in the elevator.

"If anyone had a new poem, you were to go to the elevator immediately and turn the power off and we would listen while that person read their new poem," Walker said. "For us that was a private chamber."

The Danville native and UK graduate will be a visiting professor in the 2006-07 academic year at Transylvania University.

In addition to Walker, the Affrilachian Poets now include Nikky Finney, Crystal Wilkinson, Kelly Norman Ellis, Ricardo Nazario-Colon, Mitchell Douglas, Bernard Clay, Bianca Spriggs, Howard Wang, Shayla Lawson, Jude McPherson, L'Erin Kol, Samuel Fitzpatrick, Parneshia Jones, Amanda Johnston and others.