Walker's 'Turn Me Loose' One of Year's Best in Poetry

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 11, 2013) — Kentucky poet laureate Frank X Walker's book "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," was selected as one of Slate magazine's "10 Best Poetry Books of 2013."

The collection of poems, published by the University of Georgia Press, revolves around the civil rights leader's murder in 1963. Walker, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky Department of English, crafted the poems in the voices of individuals central to the event: Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers; his older brother Charlie; the white supremacist assassin who killed him, Byron De La Beckwith; and De La Beckwith's two wives.

Writing for Slate, Jonathan Farmer says: "Walker’s ability to create a human voice of inhumanity—and to place it alongside other voices that struggle to remain human in the face of such devastation—revitalizes our history at a time when too many want us to live as though it were merely a thing of the past."

MEDIA CONTACT: Keith Hautala, 859-323-2396; keith.hautala@uky.edu