National Poetry Month Celebrated at Ohio County Public Library

The Ohio County Public Library is joining in the nationwide celebration of National Poetry Month this April. Launched in April 1996, the month highlight poet's integral role in our culture. Through circulating books, digital materials, programs, or various other opportunities, the Ohio County Public Library continues to promote and support poetry. We hope that you enjoy a poem this month!

LUNCH WITH BOOKS: Wheeling Poetry Series Presents Frank X. Walker

April 11, 2023 - 12:00pm

A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival. A lover of comics, Walker curated “We Wear the Mask: Black Superheroes through the Ages,” an exhibit of his personal collection of action figures, comics, and related memorabilia at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center in 2015; he reprised the exhibit in 2018 at Purdue University and Western Carolina University. Walker recently returned to the world of visual art with a collection of new and early multimedia works, “Black Star Seed: When Mi Cyaan Find Di Words” which was on exhibit at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co- founded the Affrilachian Poets, subsequently publishing the much-celebrated eponymous collection. His honors also include a 2004 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry, the 2008 and 2009 Denny C. Plattner Award for Outstanding Poetry in Appalachian Heritage, the 2013 West Virginia Humanities Council’s Appalachian Heritage Award, as well as fellowships and residences with Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Kentucky Arts Council. In 2020 Walker received the Donald Justice Award for Poetry from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. The recipient of honorary doctorates from University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, Spalding University and Centre College, Walker is the founding editor of pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and serves as Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. His most recent collection is Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems.

In addition to being in-person in the Library auditorium, this program will be available to watch live on Facebook Live, on YouTube, and on the OCPL website's LWB Livestream page.  Log into your Facebook or YouTube account during the program to leave questions for our presenters in the comments box. They will answer them during the live broadcast. 

Celebrate National Poetry Month with hoopla Digital

Enjoy the poetry collection now available from hoopla. Dozens of eBooks and eAudiobook are available with Instant download. Additionally, enjoy poetry related movies and documentaries from hoopla including Maya Angelou: And I Still Rise from PBS American Masters.  

hoopla Poetry eBook Collection

hoopla Poetry eAudiobook Collection

hoopla Poetry Movies and Documentaries Collection

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Libby

Enjoy the poetry collection now available from Libby. Dozens of eBooks and eAudiobook are available from family favorites like Dr. Seuss to modern poets like Ocean Vuong and Amanda Gorman, there is something for everyone to enjoy!

Libby Poetry Collection

Previous Wheeling Poetry Series Events at the Ohio County Public Library

LUNCH WITH BOOKS: Wheeling Poetry Series: Lynn Emanuel

Lunch with Books: Wheeling Poetry Series featuring Amy M. Alvarez

LUNCH WITH BOOKS: Wheeling Poetry Series with Joseph Bathanti and Joel Peckham

LUNCH WITH BOOKS: Wheeling Poetry Series with Carrie Conners & Jacob Strautmann

LUNCH WITH BOOKS LIVESTREAM: Wheeling Poetry Series - Anna Egan Smucker and Bill King

LUNCH WITH BOOKS LIVESTREAM: Wheeling Poetry Series presents Cameron Barnett