A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, he is the editor of Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium and the author of three poetry collections: Black Box (Old Cove Press, 2005); Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York (University of Kentucky Press, 2003), winner of the 35th Annual Lillian Smith Book Award; and Affrilachia (Old Cove Press, 2000), a Kentucky Public Librarians' Choice Award nominee.
A Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship recipient, Walker's poems have been converted into a stage production by the University of Kentucky Theatre department and widely anthologized in numerous collections; including The Appalachian Journal, Limestone, Roundtable, My Brothers Keeper, Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry and Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art. He is also a contributing writer and columnist for Ace Weekly.
He co-produced a video documentary, Coal Black Voices: the History of the Affrilachian Poets, which received the 2002-2003 Jesse Stuart Award presented by the Kentucky School Media Association, and produced a documentary exploring the effects of 9.11 on the arts community, KY2NYC: Art/life & 9.11. His visual art is in the private collections of Spike Lee, Opal Palmer Adisa, Morris FX Jeff, and Bill and Camille Cosby.
He has held board positions for the Kentucky Humanities Council, Appalshop and the Kentucky Writers Coalition as well as a government appointments to Cabinet for Education, Arts & Humanities and the Committee on Gifted Education. Recently, he served as Vice President of the Kentucky Center for the Arts and the Executive Director of Kentucky’s Governor’s School for the Arts.
Walker serves as a Visting Professor of Rhetoric, Writing and Communication at Transylvania University and the publisher of the new Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture, due out in spring 2007.
"Elves"
— For Aunt Helen Ewing
Santa couldn’t come
until my fingers and arms ached
from cutting up raisins and walnuts
after carrying blackberry jam
flour, sugar and eggs
wax paper, vanilla
and boxes of Duncan Hines
all the way home
from the A&P, up townuntil Rudolph, Frosty
the Grinch, the Little Drummer Boy
and the Nutcracker
had danced across the screen
and the smell of tangerines
and the last jam cake
had over powered
the fresh cut pine in the airuntil Aunt Helen put on lipstick
avon perfume
and her good wig
and stood in the screen door, waiting
for the shadowy figures
to drop off toys
and stay, a whilehe couldn’t come
until mamma teased me
from my pretend slumber
and sent me tipping through the snow
door to door
armed with screwdrivers
wrenches and extra batteries
in case somebody else’s daddy
forgot