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Classroom Curriculum
FREE downloadable classroom curriculum
Film Details
54:30 minutes
About the Film
Featuring:
- Nikky Finney, National Book Award for Poetry 2011
- Frank X Walker, a Lannan Foundation Fellow for Poetry, 2014 recipient of the NAACP Image Award and former Kentucky State Poet Laureate
- Crystal Wilkinson, Kelly Norman Ellis, Ricardo Nazario-Colon, and others
This ensemble of writers challenge simple notions of an all-white Appalachian region and Southern literary culture while drawing on traditions of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.
Praise for Coal Black Voices
“The poems in Coal Black Voices evoke delicious details from the writers lives that can evoke delicious details from students’ lives, and a rhythm so alive, I want to dance when I hear them — a valuable educational resource for engaging students in African American experience and literary traditions.”
Dr. Linda Christensen
Director of the Oregon Writing Project (OWP), Graduate School of Education, Lewis & Clark College
“The work of Frank X Walker is an eclectic, powerful mixture of liberating style, profound insight, and unwavering organic connection to the intellectual, political, and cultural struggles of a people. He stands in the tradition of DuBois, McKay, Robeson, Hughes, and other great writers, poets and performers whose contributions have transcended time and space to give generation after generation pause and hope.”
Ricky L. Jones
author of Black Haze
“Teaching the Affrilachian Poets to my students, many of whom are from Kentucky, is a revelation. These students, black and white, are excited to see their own life experiences represented by these gifted poets, especially founder Frank X Walker, former Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Incorporating the outstanding video Coal Black Voices brings the texts to life and adds depth to classroom discussion. In addition, I believe the video is important in a larger arena because hearing from the authors directly enriches our understanding of how Affrilachian perspectives are such essential additions to our regional and national conversation. I find particularly vibrant this video’s combination of interview, reading, commentary, and performance—it’s one thing to hear a writer read her poem, and it’s something else entirely to see a poem recited and danced by a group of students. In short, Coal Black Voices is a brilliant and valuable resource that deeply enhances my students’ learning; I couldn’t teach this literature without it.”
Dr. Kris Yohe
Professor of English, Northern Kentucky University
Awards and Film Festivals
Festival Pick – Athens International Film and Video Festival 2002
Featured – Indaba: Three Days of Coal Black Voices 2002
Official Selection and Featured – Santa Fe African Diaspora Film Festival 2003
Official Selection – Atlanta Film Festival’s Civil Rights Film Series 2004
Honored – The African Effect: The Contemporary African Diaspora, Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Arts 2004
Wisconsin Book Festival, Madison, Wisconsin 2012
Lyric Theater, Roots Festival. Lexington, Kentucky 2013
2002-2003 Jesse Stuart Award presented by the Kentucky School Media Association
Broadcasts
2001 to present – Regional public television WKET reaching Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
Broadcast 2004, regional public television throughout Ohio.
More Video About the Poets
Nikky Finney, Playing By Ear, the Poetry of James Baldwin, March 3, 2014, from Poetry Magazine.
Kentucky Muse from Kentucky Educational Television
Nikky Finney’s Acceptance Speech for the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry, an awe inspiring reading and “the best acceptance speech ever” – John Lithgow. This is not to be missed.
Frank X Walker Creative Solutions to Life’s Challenges on NPR
Frank X Walker’s Kentucky State Poet Laureate Acceptance Speech recorded by Old Cove Press
Film Support
Coal Black Voices was produced with support from the KET Fund for Independent Production, The Wexner Center Media Arts Program, The Ohio State University, Kentucky Arts Council, Ohio Arts Council, Kentucky Humanities Council, Ohio Humanities Council and Media Working Group.
