I don't know if the regular deflection of compliments is a product of being raised in Sistah Faye's house of fire and brimstone or simply the fear that somebody will notice that the time clock (on the fifteen minutes of fame) got stuck at 14:59. It has been one incredible year for this self proclaimed poet laureate of the projects. Buzz Burnam reminded me recently that when you send the praises up the blessings come down. And it has literally been raining blessings. As much as I'd like to take credit for my current and collective good fortunes, I'm always amazed at how many people continue to gift me with their time and talent and support. Clearly there is no such animal as a self-made-man. But before this turns into a syrupy speech as I pass the reluctant celebrity status that apparently comes with the ACE Person of the Year Award, I want to share my equivalent of the two minute video montage that is shown at the end of the Final Four tournament:

As it opens, I am standing wide eyed in the printing plant as the first three finally finished Affrilachias come sliding down the assembly line when Nyoka Hawkins (editor/publisher /architect of Old Cove Press) literally stops the presses. Really. She picks up the first book, gives it a quick once over and says, "Stop! These are not right." And they weren't. Someone had changed her very meticulous measurements and the perfectly planned covers now spilled over onto the spine of the book. Stopping the presses in a printing plant is a lot like the dramatic pause in the old E. F. Hutton commercials. The major difference is that guys in suits and ties come out of their tidy little offices and on to the production floor where barrels of ink, Volkswagen-sized rolls of paper and presses as big as trailer homes reside, trying to assign blame. A salesman takes her into a windowed office and attempts to placate her by offering a discount on the printing bill. I am somewhere between shocked and proud when I hear her say, "I wouldn't take them if they were free."

This was when it became painfully clear to me what the difference between the writer/artist and publisher/artist was. After having the book printing schedule moved three times in one year and being almost intoxicated with the sheer anticipation of holding my "first born," I don't know if I would have had the courage to stop the run, even if they had spelled my name backwards. When it was over they had to reprint all two thousand covers, thus delaying the birth of Affrilachia a fourth time. And I would not have been able to survive the ride back to Lexington had she not liberated one of the "imperfect" copies and slid it covertly into my hands.

Cut to a close up of my finger tips caressing the cover of the book and my parents' "monochromatic" faces which are barely visible in the light from the dashboard. Fade to black.

Black jeans. Black shoes. Black T-shirt. Black leather jacket. Black shoulder bag. Standing. No, frozen, at the top of the Joseph-Beth escalator marveling at the huge banner featuring the cover of the book. The dark menacing figure that strolled out of a Marvel comic book and across the parking lot is now reduced to a giggling eight year old. A miniature replica, my son Dvan, swims in and out of the school of family already gathered in the reading area down below. I laugh when I think about how he smiled when he saw the poem about him in the book and how straight his back is when he says that his daddy wrote a book...of poems...all about him.

As Gurney Norman warms up for the voice over and introduction cut alternately to individual faces in the audience. A cousin I haven't seen in two years. I used to change her diapers. A brother who vowed never to speak to me again, seemingly more peaceful than the marine who returned from Desert Storm. An aunt who has always claimed me as her son. Yoruba faced sisters flanking Mama. And a video camera floating in the back of the room with my father's eye attached to the other end. My Nikki and Dvan. Affrilachians everywhere. Note the familiar nappy smiles and noses as the faces morph into each other.

As I stand off to the side and attempt to inventory the family reunion, it occurs to me that almost none of the assembled have ever heard me read poetry, especially my father to whom the first poem in the book is dedicated. Though I have done this countless times the consistent nervousness that prevents me from eating anything prior to reading begins its own escalator ride up from my belly. Mamma shoots me a smile and nods towards the podium and I stand and deliver. The camera pans the audience and slowly zooms in on my daughter, Nikki who smiles approvingly.

Cut to Nikki and me under a tree on the campus of Transylvania University. She is in tears. I am only her father. She has just unfurled a litany of confessions that include, "I don't want to be a writer. I just did it because I wanted to make you proud of me." She has earned her way into a very intensive creative writing summer program and is having a moment of self-doubt. It feels good to tell her how much better she is than I was at her age. It feels even better to tell her I think she'll make a fantastic Physical Therapist. She laughs. She has been surrounded by artists and writers her entire life. Nikky Finney, Crystal Wilkinson, Anne Shelby, and Kelly Norman Ellis aren't just great woman writers, they are aunts who send birthday cards and gift books. I know her passion for reading and writing will make college more manageable. Our tears change temperature.

Cut to the Men's Federal Prison in Fayette County. I am walking across the prison yard with the chaplain. Down long echoing corridors. Fluorescent bulbs humming. Splattering bright light everywhere. I feel like I'm walking through an x-ray machine. Having an MRI...until we get to the chapel. Sydney Shaw's idea to present my poetry with his choir made sense theoretically, but we have not even rehearsed. Not even once. Simply agreed via email which poems complimented which songs. Why couldn't prison ministry include some poetry he had asked? So here I was.

I don't know what I expected. But I didn't expect the inmates to have their own four piece band. I didn't expect it to be so crowded. I did expect, though I wasn't prepared for, every single prisoner to look like me as I dug easily into the barrel of family pain that was filled with bail-money-calls in the middle of the night, tearful courtroom scenes, images of loved ones on the inside, in visiting rooms and seemingly endless loss. So much human potential wasting away for reasons I cannot always fully comprehend. Opening with a poem about my mother, I resurrect her smile and affirming nod and I read/hurt/swallow/ smile through to the last poem, a rite I have performed more than seventy times in the last year. Somewhere between hearing the choir sing Amazing Grace and feeling them hum it underneath my poem, I wonder if I will ever be able to read these particular pieces again. For a brief moment while introducing the faith laced works from the collection, I become the minister my mamma always wanted me to be.

Cut to close ups of men who could be my brothers, uncles, cousins all lined up to share a silent thank you and good bye. Communicated simply as a two-fisted handshake, chest thump and an eyeball to eyeball truth telling glance and nod that speaks volumes. That says what mere words would inadequately translate. Before the last participant shuffles out of the room with his head higher and soul lighter, before the last heavy steel door's electronic lock clicks behind us, I know this will be a poem.

It is that knowing that sustains me. That drives me. That encourages me to write. It is the emotional undercurrent of our collective existence that makes these poems so accessible.

Cut to actual voice of the author of a piece of fan mail. Zoom in on text. Pan from left to right. "We are from different races, genders, and generations but I truly enjoyed your reading last night, particularly the poem about your grandmother." Other voices blend in, "Thank you for your poem about divorce." "Thank you for that piece about your dad. I lost my dad this year and that poem really helped me appreciate him again."

In mountain communities in Virginia, in juvenile detention centers in Alabama and in classrooms in Chicago, regular everyday people are connecting to the work because they recognize how much of a reflection of them it is. None of us may look alike but we grieve. We explode with anger. We lust and love and laugh. We live. That's what life is or at least what it used to be. As I continue to seek understanding and particularly to understand the particular journey of this book and this poet and this Affrilachian regional identity that is slowly developing a broader appeal, I can't help but think that sometimes something comes along and reminds us how alive we are by pointing out how fragile living is.

Simply writing out demons and daring to share them with anybody who will listen, hoping to experience some growth. Hoping to find some closure however long it takes has been the foundation that has sustained at least our writing group for almost a decade.

All I really claim to know is that when my mamma stood up at the end of the performance of the staged production of Affrilachia, produced by UK's theater department and announced that , "Frank wrote those words but you gave them breath," she was simply thanking everyone for listening as I do now.

My aunt Katherine tried but she didn't buy all of the books that are out there somewhere in the world honoring our collective lives. If you own one I hope it unlocks and or locks up something for you. And on a final note, after my Mother acknowledged the audience for her own personal ovation and we poured ourselves out of the theater she whispered to me that she sat there and watched all her life unfold on that stage and it seemed like all the pain just went away.

Cut to Nyoka and Gurney receiving the Small Press of the Year Award followed by UK Theater and Geri Maschio receiving the Kennedy Center's Outstanding College Theatrical Production Award. Fade to black. Bring up the soundtrack. (Something by Keb Mo' or Mitch Barrett and Carla Gover).

Roll the credits.

Frank X Walker was selected as "This Year's Model" for the 1999 year-end edition of Ace. Since then, the first printing of Affrilachia, his book of poems, sold out (a second printing is in stores now). He has given readings across the country. UK Theatre adapted the book for a recent stage production, and it is slated to be produced elsewhere in 2001. Walker is also the director of the Governor's School for the Arts.