>> How have prompter is the prompter on?

♪ One little.

But to do it.

>> I'm sorry to notice it before I didn't notice >> Haha.

I'm lucky to be able to see it period.

And 5 gets bigger with each passing year.

Are the camera gets closer, won it yet.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

You get on it.

Yes, it's good.

Yeah, it's on.

Thank you so much.

Kentucky's first African American poet, Laura artist, writer and educator Frank X Walker has an artfully illustrated children's book.

>> That elevates the history of black life in the Appalachian Region and beyond a is for Appalachia is the title.

And the writer Frank X Walker joins me now on connections.

♪ ♪ Thank you for joining me for connections today.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Our guest today is a familiar face and voice on K E T. >> We featured his work on this program and others across our platforms.

He's published 11 collections of poetry.

Turn me loose.

The UN ghosting of Medgar Evers won him a national NAACP Image Award and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award.

The founding member of the After Latching Poets has a vividly illustrated children's book that lifts the people, places and events that have helped shape the black experience.

And I'm glad to have you here.

Frank X Walker, good to see you.

It's great to be back and see you.

Yeah, it's been a long time.

A lot to catch up on.

>> Well, in COVID years, a long time, but really not that long.

Well, that's right.

Yeah.

COVID took a lot from us time.

>> And an energy and our mentales, whatever, right?

I mean, how how are you?

I would think that during this time I always think people who are really involved in the arts use our times that are the deepest in the darkest and sometimes the most isolating to do their best work.

>> You know, a lot of people complaining about not being able to create of almost felt embarrassed, telling people that.

It was.

The most prolific time I've have written more the last 3 and a half 4 years to not did.

10 years before that.

a Finnish, some new projects and this is this is one of them.

>> Right?

Well, we'll talk about maybe the others if we have time.

But let's talk about is for after latching.

We're putting the image of the book cover on the screen, Beautiful Illustrated.

Biden says up from some dirt, but we know the real name of this artist.

Absolutely.

Ron Davis and is the partner of Crystal Wilkinson and a fellow after latching poet.

So tell us about this is a children's book.

Is this this is your first children's book, right?

It is my first children's and >> obviously chose book in quotations.

But I think about as a >> as the excuse to for people to learn things they should have learned when they were children.

I mean, it communicates optically.

In every way that he was book should.

But it's also full grown folks.

And for you know, what I hope will be grandparents up as reading to children have an excuse to learn something that they should have.

No, but they did not know.

Yeah.

>> And we're showing some of the pages because it's the alphabet, someone to explain how the how this works to us.

>> Well, like most most ABC variance just March the alphabet letter to time and you focus on where is that call of that particular You know, from a to Z see have be on the screen.

That's image of Booker.

T Washington's of Booker T Washington's one of those.

Luminaries from from Appalachia.

But as I like to think of it, as after Laci's husband, a lot of people think about the region.

They don't see it in color, right?

And I'm always trying to forest redefinition of the entire region.

call 13 states from northern New York to Mississippi and Alabama and eastern Kentucky.

And see it in a way that includes people of color.

>> And I should have had you define after a watch a force of the very so that people have a clear understanding they should because a lot of your programs from from old still run on one of our family of channels here at KET.

Define for us.

What after Alachua and after election is.

>> Well after Russia is is just what it sounds like.

You hear Appalachian there.

But you also hear Africa kind of forced into the word the same time, an assembly as a reference to people of color of African descent who also live and work and he'll from the region.

People think of this Appalachia and it's such a broad place that people don't realize.

It includes Pittsburgh.

That's right.

And Birmingham, a Chattanooga and all the spaces in between which we know include people of color.

But when we hear the word, we think about what we've mass media and we see images that exclude people in.

So we've been trying to use the word in the inclusive term for the last 30 plus years.

this children's book will get a little closer at Yeah.

>> I'm gonna go to one example D the letter D is for the real Dukes of Hazzard and Denise McNair.

The 4th little girl killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in.

I'm always curious, Frank, about how you come up with all of these.

Don't know if it's a literate Ivar, not what the right word is to make the history really come alive and a new way?

Well, you know, I think almost she did in this case because before it was a children's book.

>> It was just a long pole.

>> Most of the the lyricism was already built into it because they had to work as a poem and then.

The first time was published as a Palm Silva Schubert.

The said, you know, this will make a great children's book of and that I had thought about before and in that instant, I tried to imagine it a page of the time.

A letter to time of.

And proceeded to move on the than a year later.

You know, I had to some heavy mail and say, you know, they know that suggested you the in print it's going to happen.

Yeah.

So.

>> 2 things.

One, I love it.

Y is for all of y'all.

That's my favorite because you take it all the way to Z you know, and and the illustrations, we kind of alluded to this, the beginning of Ron Davis just really I don't know what the word is for their bold, their vivid.

It's in your face is graphic.

it just really makes it come alive.

Yeah, I think it's the highlight of the book for me.

>> Even the cover when I saw the stack of the images for every lesson out of it.

I said this is the cover of the book.

You know, I was so in Z and those bright colors and just pop.

But I think when I see these images, I think how brilliant how easily and quickly to communicate, It's almost like in the take a short cut to your brain somehow and are communicated another level.

So there was nobody else.

I even thought about.

Then the illustrative, this book that Ron Davis.

>> talk about the collaboration because I'm sure that's quite interesting how you he interprets your words, which I mean, you already said it was a poem.

So he had something to work with.

Did you guide him in any direction?

Does let him does free free format.

>> I got out of the way.

It's not on the way.

You know, I think Ivan kind of warn him in advance of that given his name and then the press contacted him and hired him to illustrate.

All the letters and then they will send them.

He was sent them to them.

And then they listened to me and I will say that wonderful threat to the back and say we lack But it was it was so quick and so easy.

It was so exciting because he didn't do all it wants him.

He would do.

doesn't in a row and send those to see if he was on, you know, in the right.

Space that we're imagining brands such as we saw the first set of images like, yes, this this is the book were looking for these images.

We imagined and I'm so proud.

Yeah, but it was my see the cover it.

You know, I think, you know, thank you, Rob.

>> Yes, yes, a genius that he is where you have a new little one.

Not so new and not so little and your life.

And I'm curious about was that was he the inspiration for this to in some way?

Well, I think the idea for a book yeah.

I have read in my own book to him and having him acknowledge that, you know, this was part of his life.

That was part of the inspiration and it felt good.

The first time to actually hand it to him and have them look at it and say.

>> For tax what that Yahoo >> in a so he's in the he's he's proud.

Yes, and I think at some point, you know, he'll be up to.

Share with other individuals right now is just another book in and a stack of books, right?

Right?

Yeah, it's not a truck.

You know, best.

>> So he's he's in love with trucks right now with the vision, a work that you're going to do to pay homage to is fondness for trucks.

You know.

>> have to happen at some point.

Maybe it'll be about, you know, he's he's an love for words or 4 things that that I love.

But trying to give him room to express himself in.

And I hope that the truck thing is just a phase.

And, you know, you say, you know what, I've had enough trucks ready, right?

Support the right of the picture as well and cut him.

Some slack is only went 4 and a half or in some change.

>> He doesn't have to get a job Clock is ticking.

The clock is ticking.

What they grow up so fast and then in so many ways.

Well, I do want to talk to you about the other works that you mention because you said you've been so productive during the time when many people struggle.

>> To maybe find their voice and that creativity to actually get it on campus or or whatever their medium is.

What else is in the works already completed?

>> finished a a and then a diversion of Buffalo Dead.

Steadman came out last fall of I finished my first novel.

And this is somewhere in the world being edited >> and groomed and Polish.

Can you share as the plot?

>> Well, I mean, is basically.

A father and son, both writers who came in writing from 2 different worlds.

One came through the university system in academia.

The other start writing in prison and they beat each other for the first time 20 years after the birth of the sun that he didn't know about and they argue about words and their that was very fractured.

Obviously.

And hopefully make it out the other side, you know, as 2 men more like brothers and father and son by the end of the and it's a it's been a slow project, but I never had enough time.

To live in that space in the finish.

It because it's fiction.

Works differently.

The poet you my head but that's one of the gifts of COVID me as one of the silver lining is is having that, you know, be in sheltered in It.

I'm in the house right from the computer or my journal and there's nothing else left on television to watch for be.

Haha.

So what do this time?

Right?

And I kept fun out the all the extra time.

But I say from not driving, you know, kids to school and we're not going out shopping, you know, not going out for entertainment, you know, going out to the Gulf.

We've been to really being outside.

Some had 6 extra hours in the day and just use of that to be was such a gift for me.

Yeah.

>> could you have imagined writing this novel?

Before COVID are without COVID.

I started.

Almost 10 years ago I only had a chance to finish it because of COVID.

I think that.

>> Had that not been the interruption in the It was still be a work in progress was able to finish it and 3 other projects at the same time.

So right.

>> The process is different from poetry, writing versus where you had to go to get in that fictive kind of place to explore and let your imagination go maybe to.

>> More personal places.

Would you say?

I don't know that >> Personally, just that the distance between.

Regular life and a fix to life for me to write fiction.

I said to move emotionally and least to Leslie incident space now and live there to understand those characters and the setting in such a way that when I write about it, it feels very organic and Well, I can write a poem driving for elections in Louisville in my head and just gets the other hand pick up the phone, Al Gore's doubt.

Well, and maybe.

For dress later, you know, it's ready to be in the stack up holes for the next book.

But I could never do fiction like that for fixing it for 5 hours, uninterrupted.

Just a get there.

Become part of the space, you know, understand what's happening.

Chase the words to translate that and then try to.

Find the words to put on the page and that.

You can't do that driving.

Sure.

>> But that you can even do the poetry driving as is he's a gifted talent that few of us can understand.

>> Well, last year, a passenger in the car, my kids always say We read with the read it to what is the radios off, right?

Yeah, no distractions let's do you know he's going to fall to the back seat in the But me I need that space.

And you know something about travel and moving that really is meditative bring the words Dow for So when I'm driving and I do a lot of good work on the road in airplanes, airports, you know, hotel rooms, Dist how the city and in that space and processing language and words trying to make best use of time and also disguise.

The fact I'm afraid to fly.

I also just that mold and work to the plane lands.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's all good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

>> You know, we've been in since.

>> In the last 3 years, we've had lots of developments in our world COVID among them.

But social justice I want to say or reinvention of it.

But maybe it And I'm curious about how as someone who's been really involved and elevating the black experience how you've interpreted that part of our narrative these last 3 years?

>> Well, it is amazingly that first year actually produced the book.

Call it pandemic in protest.

Paul new mask, manda lack and it was about what I was experiencing gender pandemic.

And I set up to write a poem a day because it was April.

You know, John, the first part of the pandemic in 2020.

I made it through April, but I couldn't stop writing.

I was still end up on Monday.

In July.

And was also published in the Mon.

We're not publishing but posting them on on Facebook to give myself some pressure to get them up and done every day.

One of my publishes contacted me and said, you know, having to you have, you know, you do this every day said yes, I think we have a book.

And so I just come together some to issues like let's let's get this book out this year.

So that book came out and in I focused on the challenges of of surviving in this new way this pandemic, what it, you know for me personally, what it meant for my family will have a larger community.

And then when the protest came in in this like a two-headed monster and just dual conversation and trying to have them both at the same time for me, it was having on the page that made the most So that's how I have of the entire time.

Still Highland, that whole thing.

As a write it.

And thinking about it at the time to process it.

Figure out what I feel and capture those feelings with words and put them on the page.

>> And the fact that we often still relive the Breonna Taylor's and the George Floyd's and that continuing refrain.

>> Unfortunately, it's it is.

It's like a it's like a loop.

It bill.

Yeah.

>> Still teaching.

>> Absolutely.

You know, UK would have it any other way and but I I think teaching is what you know, people ask me all the time.

You know, how is it that you don't look 100 because we know you're just I always is teaching teaching.

It's me feeling young ally trying to to Massey energy of my students of and they KET you informed and also have a one of one of my kids.

My daughter Nikki, you know, it's a personal commitment and life to make sure I updated at least language was.

So she's always the first ones lying yet to tell me, you we do say that anymore.

You know, stop said dad, don't ever say that.

A good now.

So it's our job so far and the filling out of date.

She says, you know, that.

>> Well, that would be an interesting book to write.

I mean, a lot of us could use help are now I learn some new ones from our our young folks here who help me with that.

And I still can't get it right.

I try to put them together and just massacred all, you know, I think.

That's part of the But as someone who loves words like you do and you see things take on different interpretations.

I mean, are you a purist and say let's not go that far, right?

Why it is.

Although the U.S., you know, I my kids know that I also like to have fun, but also like a love.

The fact that if we're talking about words already won, you know of if there are that interested in the mileage of aware to what came from?

How is use that?

We have that conversation.

>> You know, I'm secretly pat myself on the back because, you know, it's not you know, we're not talking about the news that when I talk about something that that we both can be interested in.

So that's always a win for be but in those conversations, it's half a dozen of one thing.

Has the other have my family loves books.

The other half case.

The fact that if I give a gift is going to remember as a kid.

>> Of they have this whole routine where they pick up the package.

This gift wrapped but shape, obviously like a book and they would say, wow, yes, vote for Ayad one.

Know what this is.

It is it that they would open it?

They tend to be surprising, right?

You have to put your name on it, right?

You know, they they are are >> And they can to buy the rapid who was for because that try to at least match the rapping to the person.

but half of them appreciated that the then the other half is like my sis to that.

Despite the fact he has all of my books, she's not been any of them.

>> But she has and prominently displayed.

I'm sure saying what exactly go to the house and you can't touch a wreck on the side is trying to reach for their said no, no, no.

The right well, what they're like, but it's.

>> And the perfectly, you know, never open perfect edges, still shining like they just came out.

That was a bit.

I think those are collect items now.

>> And that's all they have for art pieces, which is not a bad thing.

But I mean best for her, even though my books that just to collect them not to.

I would read such.

>> You know, when we've talked before, we know we all know that your love of comic books right?

>> Yes.

that did being in the library and being in that space was like, you're you're citadel like, you know, that's where you could just find a groove.

And still and still to this day.

>> The it currently have a in exhibit a headed down with the public library and now it's at the lyric Theater as a whole gallery of action figures in comics that feel the entire room from my personal collection.

And it's up the entire month of February.

So I'm still, you know, China capturing keeping live in that groove in.

You know, and why is that?

>> You know, I don't I think is trying to KET that 13 year-old kid >> We're trying to make sure that for my kids, the things I thought were missing when I was young and impressionable, they don't have the same excuse, right?

Right of.

You know, I can't imagine what it's been like to have the library that like my 4 year-old has now.

Remember my library when I was his age was a stack of magazines that were handed out magazines.

The mother brought home from had domestic work.

And that was a library.

But I didn't know that that was something better than that, And it wasn't until I was old enough to walk uptown to the library to appreciate that.

You know, that was that many books in the world.

We can afford to have them at home.

But also remember with my mother purchase, a set of child craft library and suddenly we had a library and I house and they was they was 26 books.

But, you know, he can tell me this wasn't.

Like the downtown library.

I know the power of books and and always, should you mind early literacy at connection with words to anything people.

Claim a success for None of it would have happened without the release of the words and books and reading and make school easier.

It may communicating more possible of and it just me.

Everything less intimidating.

You know, nothing about my work in prisons.

And in June us jail systems and working with young people who struggle with literacy.

The ones on the other end who have been in the system, a wildland the to read it and now they love books.

They always say that they wish they had learned to read early because now they can read.

They don't feel as can find that the world is available to them.

>> It even though they may be physically confide confide but they can use of rain and travel to other universes and they didn't know that was possible.

You see them almost bubbling in the chair talking about it than them because now the intellectually alive in a way that before they were asleep, right, and then didn't even know that was possible.

So I want that for everybody.

Yeah, especially enough yet.

>> We like it.

We think about if you want your kids, certainly you think about this 280 Twitter character world that we're in where our attention spans are shrinking by the day, right?

it and then technology has its place.

And certainly those platforms can be positive.

But do you think that that somehow doing a disservice in an injustice to our literacy efforts to encourage reading at a younger age and to really let your mind explore its curiosity.

>> I don't think it's an injustice.

And I think.

I want to think about is a different kind of reading and writing.

I think because of that technology more people are reading and writing them before the Internet.

And there are a lot of people only read the cereal box and that was it for the day.

Even if they went to school, they wouldn't but even if there Reeve in language, you know, I think about the power to Modi's.

You know what that's doing to language what he's doing to visual art I've seen whole business signs to communicate with just the Modi's and that works.

But it's it's is if you think about it as a new language, Not as don't away something.

because at the very least is a gateway to the kind of language that I think is life-sustaining.

You know, that's intellectually stimulating that at the root of it, you know, makes you more powerful, communicate in that.

You know, I think that whatever you do in the world.

The stronger your communication skills, most successful, you'll be.

I'm for all the technology, right?

Although I have a Twitter account, but I use it.

>> You know, you know, my my daughter keeps trying to talk them to use and something called Something else even beyond that, not barely managing Facebook, Ukraine once a month.

I just can't.

It's too much for me.

I'm real.

I'm really most comfortable in the old comfortable space of just pencil and paper.

although I admit down first, I saw somebody go to a microphone, clipped a phone and then Rita.

Paul, you know, I was a pause, said, you know, I would never do that.

Now I'm doing Hassett vie with readers to reduce perhaps.

But yeah, all those days, you know, just from my contacts.

And but you also you if my boss locals know a lot about folks who have those doing the same thing but doesn't it doesn't have the same effect.

I just love having that page in front of you and some about the sound of turn it and touch it that toe tactile experience of.

I don't think the new generation understands what the missing, but also know that the happy to not have it right.

All feel like to miss anything.

So teaches all >> Well, as we leave, I want to just return back to to your children's book and safer for those who.

What do you want people to get out of it?

What do you hope they learn and what do you hope they can pass on to their children?

>> Out those those a great question.

A minute.

What I think.

>> What do people get from this is?

The beauty and power of the images for most that even if you can't read a hope, you can fit from page to page and feel like this food there for you, but also hope that people really close enough to recognize that of that's what do conversations going on in these pages.

You know, about of diversity, about the challenges in history in our communities of about some some of the things that happen that we need to know about.

And I was hiding.

But mostly I hope people.

Conway thinking, well, this was a beautiful read.

and hopefully want to share with somebody else.

Yeah, immediately.

Yeah.

>> Well, they will.

And it's called a is for Apple.

You can pick up yours and the book stores online as well.

We hope you'll reach out and get it for yourself.

We thank Frank X Walker for being with us today.

And thank you for watching at home.

KET in touch with us on social media.

Listen to our program on podcast.

You see the address on the screen.

So I see you again.

Take really good care.

♪ ♪ ♪