Load in Nine Times: Poems

by Frank X. Walker

From former poet laureate of Kentucky and founder of the Affrilachian Poets, a collection of historical poetry that gives voice to Black Civil War soldiers.

For decades, Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical from Medgar Evers in Turn Me Loose, winner of the NAACP Award; to York, the enslaved explorer who joined the Lewis and Clark expedition, in Buffalo Dance, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union Army in exchange for emancipation. Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slaveowners and prominent historical figures—including Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Margaret Garner—into a wide-ranging series of “persona poems” imbued with atmospheric imagery and brimming with indomitable spirit. Evoking the pride and perseverance of formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker “I, am America’s promise, my mother’s song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.”

Genres: Poetry, History

144 pages, Paperback

Expected publication August 18, 2026

About the author

Multidisciplinary artist Frank X Walker is a native of Danville, KY, a graduate of the University of Kentucky, and completed an MFA in Writing at Spalding University in May 2003. He has lectured, conducted workshops, read poetry and exhibited at over 300 national conferences and universities including the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland; Santiago, Cuba; University of California at Berkeley; Notre Dame; Louisiana State University at Alexandria; University of Washington; Virginia Tech; Radford University; and Appalachian State University.
A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, he is the editor of America! What's My Name? The "Other" Poets Unfurl the Flag (Wind Publications, 2007) and Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium and the author of four poetry collections: When Winter Come: the Ascension of York (University Press of Kentucky, 2008); Black Box (Old Cove Press, 2005); Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York (University Press of Kentucky, 2003), winner of the 35th Annual Lillian Smith Book Award; and Affrilachia (Old Cove Press, 2000), a Kentucky Public Librarians' Choice Award nominee.
A Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship recipient, Walker's poems have been converted into a stage production by the University of Kentucky Theatre department and widely anthologized in numerous collections; including The Appalachian Journal, Limestone, Roundtable, My Brothers Keeper, Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry and Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art. He is a former contributing writer and columnist for Ace Weekly and the first Kentucky writer to be featured on NPR's This I Believe.
Other new work appeared recently in Mischief, Caprice & Other Poetic Strategies (Red Hen Press), Tobacco (Kentucky Writers Coalition), Kentucky Christmas (University Press of Kentucky), Cornbread Nation III, Kudzu, The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass (University Press of Kentucky) and the Louisville Review.
He has appeared on television in PBS's GED Connection Series, Writing: Getting Ideas on Paper, in In Performance At the Governor's Mansion and in Living the Story: The Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky. He contributed to Writing Our Stories: An Anti-Violence Creative Writing Program Curriculum Guide developed by the Alabama Writer's Forum and the Alabama Department of Youth Services. He co-produced a video documentary, Coal Black Voices: the History of the Affrilachian Poets, which received the 2002-2003 Jesse Stuart Award presented by the Kentucky School Media Association, and produced a documentary exploring the effects of 9.11 on the arts community, KY2NYC: Art/life & 9.11. His visual art is in the private collections of Spike Lee, Opal Palmer Adisa, Morris FX Jeff, and Bill and Camille Cosby.
Articles about Frank and the Affrilachian Poets can be seen in Kentucky Monthly and Arts Across Kentucky.
Walker has served as founder/Executive Director of the Bluegrass Black Arts Consortium, the Program Coordinator of the University of Kentucky's King Cultural Center and the Assistant Director of Purdue University's Black Cultural Center. The University of Kentucky awarded Walker an honorary Doctorate of Humanities in 2001 for his collective community work and artistic achievements. Transylvania University awarded Walker an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 2002.
He is the recipient of the 2006 Thomas D. Clark Literary Award for Excellence, Actors Theatre's Keeper of the Chronicle Award and a 2005 Recipient of a $75,000 Lannan Literary Fellowship in Poetry.
He has held board positions for the Kentucky Humanities Council, Appalshop and the Kentucky Writers Coalition as well as a government appointment to Cabinet for Education, Arts & Humanities and the Committee on Gifted Education. He has served as vice president of the Kentucky Center for the Arts and the executive director of Kentucky's Governor's School for the Ar

Reviews

[ancientreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it a coincidence that almost all the poets I think of as using a documentary form are African American: Claudia Rankine; C. S. Giscombe; Tracy K. Smith?

I'm distinguishing "documentary" from "narrative" here, to indicate poetry that draws, explicitly, on real and/or historical experience and texts. I don't have an answer to my question; I read a fair bit of poetry, but I'm not exhaustively intimate with the genre, either. But maybe there's a kind of reckoning that poets of color are especially drawn to?

Load in Nine Times reckons with slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, that is to say reckonings the United States is never liable to be done with (and never done with trying to avoid, if recent book-banning history is any indication). It reckons, specifically, with these matters in the context of Kentucky, a slave state that (if I've got this complicated story right) tried to remain neutral at the start of the Civil War but later threw its support to the Union -- while still enslaving people. "AIN'T NO PLANTATIONS IN KENTUCKY" is followed by a list of several dozen ... plantations.

And: "It is as if so much blood was spilled here our most sacred ground is still dark and wet."

Margaret Garner, whose life inspired Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, says that worse than killing is "making a woman’s body your smokehouse and root cellar, ... believing her sore sore plum is your fresh fruit." In the very next poem a white woman, Matilda Burks, writes a will in which she parcels out to her own offspring the children of her "negro woman Grace." This was the real will of a real woman; Walker quotes it liberally, appropriating it to bring into focus the casual cruelty that is exactly what Margaret Garner killed her baby to protect her from. Poetry arises from the juxtaposition -- by "poetry" I mean the kind of language that sharpens knowledge.

Thus the title poem, in which John Burnside, a member of Company K of the 124th Regiment of the US Colored Troops, talks through the steps of loading his musket and readying it to fire, and in the intervals between steps considers whether he will hesitate to shoot "massa" -- "or remember ... how many times ... he beat my wife." The poem's last word is "Fire!"

In first reading Load in Nine Times I found myself distracted by some phrasings -- "generational traumas"; "you can't never give away my dreams"; "my actions come from a place where ..." -- that rang of inspirational therapy-speak. I was also less impressed by some of the monologues given to white racists. I don't require that such people be fully fleshed out or "humanized," but their rants, their vitriol, are familiar: they don't illuminate anything for a reader at all conversant with the relevant history. But on looking over the book again to review it I could see how trivial these missteps were against the power of language like this:

"I am a man with no son I can ever touch again."

A member of the Colored Troops speaks:

This was the first time
we really look at each other
and not be able to tell
who master the cruelest
who sorrow the deepest
who ground been the hardest to hoe.

A formerly enslaved couple get married legally:

Now that we finally owned ourselves,
we put down the broom and jumped at the chance to own our promises too.

(A technical point: My ARC was a poorly formatted PDF, so in naming and quoting poems I can't be sure of capitalization or line breaks.)

Thanks to W.W. Norton and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a literary gem! Frank X. Walker, former poet laureate for Kentucky, alternates historical documents and breathtaking poems to laud the Black soldiers who fought for the Union. These poems and insights will last long after readers have turned the final page.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley, W. W. Norton & Company and Liveright in exchange for an honest review.

[Brice Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Liveright for the ARC!

Reading Frank X. Walker’s Load in Nine Times feels akin to walking through a great museum gallery—you know you won’t get everything the first time around, but it’s so good that you start planning your next trip before you’ve even finished.

I currently live in Kentucky. It’s a weird place because it feels littered with the bones of slavery, but it seems like longtime residents are quick to look past that or find alternate explanations. There’s just a whole history to talk around. Walker chooses instead to let this history talk.

Load in Nine Times feels like a rebuttal to the tendency to romanticize the lives of emancipated soldiers. While Walker celebrates their heroism, he also acknowledges a complicated reality—if one is freed into violence, what does that say about our understanding of freedom? In “Unsalted,” the speaker says, “Marvel at how valiantly untrained men die.” These poems confidently explore all the hypocrisy implicit in the space between emancipation and true freedom, and Walker thoughtfully interrogates Kentucky’s resistance to upending a culture built on the backs of enslaved individuals.

I frequently find myself struggling with historical poetry because it often sprawls out of the poet’s control, but Walker never allows that to happen, writing with an accessible style that encourages readers to look beyond the book. This is an incredibly well-researched collection, characterized by polyvocality—almost every poem is biographical in some capacity, and I found myself googling whatever I could find about each individual. It’s a wonderful set of poems because the poems aren’t the point, which makes it feel perfect for, say, a high school or college class because it seems so carefully designed to generate discussion.

All in all, this is an excellent book, and it's one I'm excited to share with others.

[Jenni Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Walker gives a voice to black civil war soldiers, slaves and those emancipated further shedding light on the injustices of our country and the horrors that we inflicted but also showing the hope and spirit of those that endured.

The only thing I would change is that I would include the notes associated with the poems (at the end of this collection)with the poem it is related to and including the timeline through the story as opposed to at the end after the collection.

Even now, many years after the Civil War there is still injustice to be corrected and equality to be had.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredibly powerful collection of poetry. Oftentimes, I have a hard time reviewing poems because it's such a personal genre. At times, it was hard to read because the subject matter was heavy. My heart broke so many times. The persona poems were amazing. I found myself stopping after every couple of poems because I had to research some of the names mentioned. It amazes me that I've learned more from this collection of poems than I ever did in all my years in school. The notes and timeline at the end of the book were very useful and much appreciated. This book should absolutely be required reading. Thank you, Mr. Walker, for writing this book and sharing your work.

*Thank you, NetGalley, for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.*

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eloquent and moving. I think I learned more about the lives of African Americans in the Civil War era from this slim volume of poems than in all my K-12 history classes. Walker’s “persona poems” provide windows into the hearts and minds of real people who lived, loved, taught, and fought. There is pain, sadness and horror, but also love, humor, majesty, strength, and triumph.

Walker’s ability to capture such a wide range of different voices is amazing. The brief explanatory notes at the end illuminate references to people and events, allowing readers to understand the poems more fully and providing a starting point for further learning.

Note: I received a free ARC at the ALA conference but was under no obligation to leave a favorable review. Thanks to Norton for introducing me to this poet!

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow. The life Walker breathes into these poems....he raises ghosts and gives them voices for us. The historical research that went into this is clear but it never feels pedantic or performative. The collection immerses the reader into its harsh world, like an icy dunk tank of hard truths. My best comp titles would be Olio by Tyehimba Jess or "The Book of Training by Colonel Hap Thompson of Roanoke, VA, 1843: Annotated From the Library of John C. Calhoun" by Percival Everett. Strongly recommend.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

From slavery to reconstruction, Frank X. Walker weaves historical poems of Black men and women from Kentucky. Smart, funny even at times, and deeply moving. Well-researched and timely. From “A Black Father Dreams a Son,” “I am America’s promise, my mother’s song, and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Black men who joined up in 1864 and beyond were part of the nation's toughest fighting, and while fighting for their freedom, they also fought with the knowledge that the Confederacy hated and exacted their in-human murderous rage upon any who remained on the field or were taken prisoner. Upon war's end, Walker does not hold back from expressing a people's faith-shaking disappointment at being so close to freedom, but being denied the full prize. As a minister laments, "The Good Lord knows, the only thing stronger than our desire for freedom was white folk’s desire to deny it.” This cross is heavy after 400+ plus years, and America seems no less willing to "Let My People Go," than the day the first Black men and women arrived on America's shores.

[Kira K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughts:
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. It’s quite rare that I read a book and just sit there thinking I have nothing to say but wow but that is how I felt finishing this book. This collection of poems at times didn’t feel like that but instead small poetic installments of a story, like going from Accounting through to Mother to Mother follow on like their own little story. I liked how some of the poems were based on genuine accounts, especially those from the soldiers. Overall, this was a great, emotive collection on a piece of world history I don’t know enough about.

Favourite Quote:
“Somehow, I survived, though it costs
Me my livelihood.
It costs many more men their lives.
This is what them mean
when they say freedom ain't free.”

[Emily | bookwhispererem · Rating 5 out of 5]

𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲, 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲, 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐗. 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐞𝐫, 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐂𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲—𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲—𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐧’���� 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐝.

𝐈 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬. 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟖𝟎𝟎𝐬.

𝑳𝒐𝒂𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝑵𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑻𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝.

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝐹𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝒳. 𝒲𝒶𝓁𝓀𝑒𝓇, 𝐿𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, & 𝒩𝑒𝓉𝒢𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓎 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒜𝑅𝒞! 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝓅𝒾𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝑜𝓌𝓃.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems that illuminates the lives of enslaved Kentuckians before the Civil War, during it as Union soldiers, and during Reconstruction and its aftermath. Based on real people and three copies of real records, these lives are given depth and imagined beautifully.

[Beatrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Within the first ten poems of this book I became very nauseous and cried many times.

The collection never loses its momentum.

My stomach ached and tears flowed until I reached the very last one.

[Claire Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heartbreaking read but one that will open your eyes to Kentucky history. The poems are stunning and the articles and references to real people have a big impact. I finished the book and immediately purchased a copy for a friend.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating poetry collection about enslaved African-Americans before, during, and after the Civil War. By combining poetry with historical accounts, Walker manages to make this poems endlessly fascinating. Definitely worth picking up if you like either poetry, history, or both.

[Justin McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular history lesson in the most beautiful style. A haunting telling of the true experience and treatment of our African American citizens in Kentucky. Frank X Walker, thank you for bringing these stories to life.

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a poetry collection based around the African Americans fighting in the Civil War to gain their freedom in Kentucky.

Really interesting way to consume history in poetry form. Very much apprechiated reading this!

[Kariana!!! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mom thought the man on the cover was P. Diddy

[Charles Halbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short on pages but deep in thought and meaning. I think everyone should read this. Tells a lot of history about the U.S., Kentucky, and slavery.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really damn good poetry. Not only that, but I learned a lot about the Civil War at the same time. This collection is really unique, and I highly recommend it