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| Affrilachian
poet takes a different look at history |
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| Written by Brian Rich
-Argonaut |
| Tuesday,
28 February 2006 |
Affrilachian is not a
nation of people with big hair, a country in
Africa that flies under the radar or a new rap
group. It’s a word coined by Frank X Walker for
people of African descent living in the
Appalachian region.
Aside from the practice
of inventing words, Walker has a more serious
agenda ahead of him: to accurately revise history
books and set a precedent for black poets in the
predominantly white region of the Appalachian
Mountains.
Courtesy photo Poet Frank X Walker will
speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the UI College of
Law Courtroom.
Walker, who will
speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the University of
Idaho College of Law Courtroom, has written three
books of poetry since 2000. His latest collection
of 68 poems is titled “Black Box” and is a
continuation of his first book, “Affrilachian,” a
series of autobiographical poems about life in the
Appalachian region.
His second book, a
significant departure from autobiographical poems,
is titled “Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York,”
about York, the personal slave of William Clark
during the Lewis and Clark expedition. Walker has
gotten much acclaim for this book, which tackles
York’s personal life, all the way down to his
girlfriend, through poems.
“I don’t think
just anybody could do this, and I don’t think any
African-American man could do this,” said UI
English instructor Robert Wrigley. “It takes a
poet of extraordinary skills. You put those things
together and you find someone capable of making
someone speak from 200 years in the past, and he
managed to do that.”
Walker said he chose to
relive York’s life because the history books have
told us something that he believes isn’t
completely accurate.
“I wanted to offer a
different point of view that would show the other
side of the coin, and challenge the largely
thought notions of (Lewis and Clark’s) impact on
North America and people of color in the context
of history,” he said.
After Walker’s UI visit,
he will speak to a high school in Lapwai, which
has a significant Nez Perce population. Walker
said York’s girlfriend was Nez Perce, though the
information is secondhand.
“From my
understanding, there was a generally respected
relationship with one woman, and that relationship
produced children, and those children are still in
the tribe,” he said.
Kim Barnes, a UI
English instructor who read poetry with Walker in
Bend, Ore., last year, said Walker’s attempt to
embody York is incredibly risky, but
successful.
“Whenever you choose to take on a
persona, and then on top of that to take on a
historical persona, you choose, in a way, to enter
into that person’s psyche, his emotional state,”
Barnes said.
She said Walker touches not
only on York’s persona, but also his cultural and
social identity. Walker engages in an exchange of
identity with York, she said, in an attempt to
capture his life better.
“I think Frank
succeeds phenomenally. There’s a transcendence
that has to happen with time and place. Those
poems aren’t just about York or history or race.
They’re about Frank X Walker.”
Walker
inserted the “X” in his name about 25 years ago,
he said, as a sign that he is looking for his real
name.
“It’s based on attempting to search
for your original African name and having a
difficult time finding it because of the
record-keeping during slavery,” he said. “On the
search, people use the ‘X’ in their name to show
they’re searching for their real
name.”
Walker said it’s the same reason
Malcolm X, who later changed his name to El-Hajj
Malik El-Shabazz, used the letter “X” in his name.
Walker said many blacks during slavery were given
white names, while their real names were
forgotten.
Jan Johnson, UI assistant
professor of English and American Indian studies,
said Walker isn’t just a poet; he’s an activist
and a public intellectual.
“He’s a poet, but
he’s also committed to activism. He’s someone
who’s both an academic and an activist. He’s
committed to challenging the idea that all
Appalachian people are white. He’s making people
of color visible in that region.”
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