Affrilachian Poets

From: With Good Reason
Length: 28:57

Appalachia is often imagined as rural and white, but a new wave of African-American writers is challenging the notion of a single Appalachian region and culture. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Affrilachian Poets
From: With Good Reason

Affrilachia_small Appalachia is often imagined as rural and white, but a new wave of African-American writers is challenging the notion of a single Appalachian region and culture. They call themselves Affrilachians. With Good Reason speaks with Frank X Walker, the poet who invented the word Affrilachia. The show also features readings from poets Hope Johnson and Crystal Good.

More from With Good Reason

The Kids are Alright (53:53)
From: With Good Reason

Have more children, spend less time on activities that you and your children don’t enjoy, and don’t stress out about parenting. Advice on raising children from an economist.

Chemistry Magic (02:39)
From: With Good Reason

In mid-May, more than 1500 high school students competed in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The winning projects included a prototype for a self-driving ...

The Art of Science (53:48)
From: With Good Reason

Sometimes all it takes to get kids excited about science is a bag full of eyeballs.

First in the Family (53:54)
From: With Good Reason

Nearly a third of college students in the United States are first-generation—meaning their parents and grandparents didn’t go. For many of these students, entering academia ...

The Temperament of FDR (02:22)
From: With Good Reason

Scholars gathered recently at a conference in Virginia to explore the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The keynote address fell to a Stanford scholar who traced the role of ...

The Legacy of FDR (53:54)
From: With Good Reason

An entire generation of Americans grew up knowing no other president than Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served four terms and led them through the Depression and World War II.

The Opera Singer (53:48)
From: With Good Reason

John Aler made his operatic debut in 1977 as Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Since then, he’s performed in some of the greatest opera houses in the world and has won ...

Butterfly in the Typewriter (53:54)
From: With Good Reason

A Confederacy of Dunces, by New Orleans-born John Kennedy Toole, is one of the great stories of American literature. A new biography of Toole tells two stories: one of the ...

The Honeybees Are Alright (02:27)
From: With Good Reason

For years, a mysterious “colony collapse disorder” has been killing honeybees across the nation. This year, commercial beekeepers have reported losses of nearly 50 percent of ...

Rainbows on Demand (53:51)
From: With Good Reason

Spotting a rainbow requires a bit of luck—you know, being in the right place at the right time. But not if you make them yourself. For over two weeks last summer, Michael ...

Piece Description

Appalachia is often imagined as rural and white, but a new wave of African-American writers is challenging the notion of a single Appalachian region and culture. They call themselves Affrilachians. With Good Reason speaks with Frank X Walker, the poet who invented the word Affrilachia. The show also features readings from poets Hope Johnson and Crystal Good.