The Affrilachian Poets represent one of the most influential literary collectives to emerge from the Appalachian region and the American South. Founded through collaboration among writers connected to the University of Kentucky, the group includes poets, novelists, scholars, dramatists, and interdisciplinary artists. Collectively, Affrilachian Poets have published more than one hundred books that reshape conversations about race, geography, identity, and language in American literature.
Below is a selection of publications by members of the Affrilachian Poets.
📚 Orfeito — 2026 — Accents Publishing
📚 The Moor of the Bronx — 2023, Finishing Line Press
📚 The Recital — 2011, Winged City Press
📚 Of Jíbaros and Hillbillies — 2011, Plain View Press
📚 Jopappy & the Sentence-Makers are Eponymous as Funk — 2025
📚 under the aegis of a winged mind — 2020, Autumn House Press
📚 hellfightin' — 2011, Willow Books
📚 Broken Tulips — 2013 — poetry chapbook, Accents Publishing
📚 ruina montium — 2016 — poetry chapbook, Broadstone Books
📚 ruina montium — 2018 — Spanish-language edition, Valparaíso Ediciones
📚 prison recipes — 2018 — poetry chapbook, Broadstone Books
📚 Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets — 2018 — University of Kentucky Press
📚 Under the Ocelot Sun / Bajo el sol del ocelote — 2020 — bilingual illustrated children's book, Shadelandhouse Modern Press
📚 World as Sacred Burning Heart — 2021 — full-length poetry collection, 3: A Taos Press
📚 Autorretrato como una iguana / Self-Portrait as an Iguana — 2021 — bilingual poetry collection, Valparaíso USA
📚 Un poema rápido en vez de un himno — 2024 — poetry, Santa Rabia Poetry
📚 Imágenes del mundo flotante — 2024 — poetry, Alcorce Ediciones
📚 how to recognize god's chosen — 2025 — poetry, Accents Publishing.
📚 Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love — 2019, Copper Canyon Press
📚 temporary hours — 2020 — digital chapbook
📚 Games for Children — 2025, Milkweed Editions
📚 Walking with Inigo — 2005 — poetry
📚 When Night Falls — 2014 — fantasy novel, The Three Gifts Book 1
📚 The Road Is Long — 2015 — poetry
📚 Falling to Earth — 2016 — poetry
📚 Microphone Check — 2017 — poetry
📚 A Plague of Shadows — 2012 — fantasy novel, The Three Gifts Book 2 — Revised Edition — 2019
📚 Nappy Metaphysic: New & Selected Poems — 2019 Hard Cover — 2020
📚 On the Black Hand Side — 2022
📚 From Earth and Sky — 2022 — short-story collection
📚 Incendiary: Poems & Essays — 2025
📚 Horsepower — 2020
📚 Once a City Said: A Louisville Poets Anthology — 2023 — editor
📚 The Black Outside, is forthcoming in 2027
📚 Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology — 2023 — co-editor
📚 Makeshift Altar — 2024 — University Press of Kentucky
📚 Blackberries, Blackberries — 2000
📚 Water Street — 2002
📚 The Birds of Opulence — 2016
📚 Perfect Black — 2021
📚 Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts — 2024
📚 Valley Girl — 2012
📚 Tougaloo Blues — 2003
📚 Offerings of Desire — 2012
📚 Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS — 2010 — co-edited
📚 Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium — 1998 — editor, anthology
📚 Affrilachia — 2000
📚 Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York — 2003
📚 Black Box — 2005
📚 America! What’s My Name? The “Other” Poets Unfurl the Flag — 2007 — editor, anthology
📚 When Winter Come: The Ascension of York — 2008
📚 Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride — 2010
📚 Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers — 2013
📚 About Flight — 2015
📚 The Affrilachian Sonnets — 2016
📚 Ink Stains & Watermarks: New and Uncollected Poems — 2017
📚 Last Will, Last Testament — 2019
📚 Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems — 2020
📚 A Is for Affrilachia — 2023 — children's book, illustrated by upfromsumdirt
📚 Love House — 2023
📚 Load in Nine Times — 2024
📚 York: A Trilogy — 2027 — forthcominng Poems from Liveright/W.W.Norton
📚 Crowned — 2010
📚 Hemisphere — 2015
📚 Watch Us Rise — 2019 — with Renée Watson
📚 Blooming Fiascoes — 2021
📚 Reckless, Glorious, Girl — 2021
📚 Don’t Call Me a Hurricane — 2022
📚 All That Shines — 2023
📚 Tell Me Every Lie — 2025 — with David Flores
📚 loves taxicab blues revisited — 1998
📚 the book of jude — 2000
📚 on my mind — 2007
📚 Jupiter's Child — 2013
📚 English Lit
📚 PYTHON — 2017 — chapbook
📚 Two Brown Dots — 2022 — poetry collection
📚 Leading Edge
📚 On Wings Made of Gauze (1985) — poetry
📚 Rice (1995) — poetry
📚 Heartwood (1997/98) — short prose/stories
📚 The World Is Round (2003) — poetry
📚 Sweet Box of Words — 2013 limited-edition (240) boxed sets of three previously published collections: poetry
📚 The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007)
📚 Head Off & Split (2011) — poetry; National Book Award winner
📚 Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts (2020) — poetry/hybrid work
📚 Sacrilegion — 2013, Carolina Wren Press
📚 Prime — 2014, Sibling Rivalry Press
📚 Caul & Response — 2015 — Genre-fluid
📚 Tangerine Tubman — 2016 — Chapbook
📚 Chiaroscuro Vitae — 2019 — Chapbook
📚 The Time Unraveller’s Travel Journal & Sankofa Paradox — 2019 — Chapbook
📚 Deifying a Total Darkness — 2020 — Full Book
📚 To Emit Teal — 2020 — Full Book
📚 The Second Stop Is Jupiter — 2023 — Full Book
📚 Vessel — 2015, Milkweed Editions
📚 Cradled by Skeletons — 2019, Shadelandhouse Modern Press
📚 Lullaby for Maddie — 2022, Shadelandhouse Modern Press
📚 Mermaid Musings: Diving in the Margins — 2025, Parker Publishing
📚 Spirits in His Hair — 2026, Shadelandhouse Modern Press
📚 Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem — 2009
📚 *\blak\ \al-fə bet* — 2013
📚 dying in the scarecrow’s arms — 2018
📚 Universal Corner — 2026
📚 Atlas of Unknowns — 2009
📚 Aerogrammes — 2012
📚 Lion and Panther in London — 2015 — ebook / novella-length work
📚The Tusk That Did the Damage — 2015
📚 Loot — 2023
📚 I Am Woman — 2021 — Accents Publishing
📚 Pretend the Ball Is Jim Crow — 2025
📚 Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures — 2020
📚 Black Powerful: Black Voices Reimagine Revolution — 2024
📚 Conversion — 2006
📚 What We Ask of Flesh — 2013
📚 Starlight & Error — 2017
📚 Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions That Grew Me Up — 2022
📚 Room Swept Home — 2024
📚 Searching for Wonton Soup — 2019 — broadside
📚 Becoming AppalAsian — 2022, Glass Lyre Press
📚 Columbus's Orphan — 1993
📚 The Singing Shark — 1996
📚 Pale Ramón — 1998
📚 Home Movies of Narcissus — 2002
📚 The Portable Famine — 2005
📚 How to Name a Hurricane — 2005, short stories
📚 Don Quixote Goes to the Moon — 2006
📚 The Roswell Poems — 2008
📚 Same-Sex Séances — 2008
📚 The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems — 2008
📚 The Sky's Weight — 2009
📚 White as Silver: Poems — 2010
📚 Dancing at Funerals: Selected Plays — 2010
📚 The Definition of Place — 2006
📚 The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street — 2010
📚 Pitch Dark Anarchy — 2013
📚 Hook: A Memoir — 2015
📚 {#289-128}: Poems — 2020
📚 Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays — 2022
📚 Destination: Ashes (1967)
📚 Above Maya (1971)
📚 Where Do People in Dreams Come From & Other Poems (2004)
📚 Two Books
📚 Sing Me Different (2012)
📚 A Speed Education in Human Being — 2013 — Sawyer House Press
📚Pantone — 2016 — MIEL Books
📚 I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean — 2018 — Saturnalia Books
📚 This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope — 2020 — Harper Perennial
📚 How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir — 2024 — Tiny Reparations Books
📚 Starshine & Clay — 2017, Four Way Books
📚 She Has a Name — 2013, Four Way Books
📚 The Trouble with Light — 2024 — University of Arkansas Press — finalist for the 2024 Miller Williams Poetry Prize
📚 Muscadine — 2023 — Four Ways Books
📚 Mob the Sky — 2026
📚 2022 State of Black Louisville: The Pandemic Report — 2022 — co-editor
📚 2024 State of Black Louisville — 2024 — co-editor
📚 Come Kingdom (LSU Press, 2022)
📚 Stripper in Wonderland (LSU Press, 2017)
📚 Ropes (Willow Books, 2013)
📚 Cotton (Willow Books, 2010)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
(Works forthcoming)
📚 Kaffir Lily — 2010
📚 How Swallowtails Become Dragons — 2011
📚 The Galaxy Is a Dance Floor — 2016
📚 Call Her by Her Name — 2016
📚 Circe’s Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women — 2016 — co-editor
📚 Undead: Ghouls, Ghosts, and More — 2017 — co-editor
📚 Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets — 2018 — co-editor
📚 Black Mermaid — 2018