Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York

Kentucky Voices

by Frank X. Walker

When Frank X Walker's compelling collection of personal poems was first released in 2004, it told the story of the infamous Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of York, who was enslaved to Clark and became the first African American man to traverse the continent. The fictionalized poems in Buffalo Dance form a narrative of York's inner journey before, during, and after the expedition—a journey from slavery to freedom, from the plantation to the great Northwest, from servant to soul yearning to be free.
In this expanded edition, Walker utilizes extensive historical research, interviews, transcribed oral histories from the Nez Perce Reservation, art, and empathy to breathe new life into an important but overlooked historical figure. Featuring a new historical essay, preface, and sixteen additional poems, this powerful work speaks to such themes as racism, the power of literacy, the inhumanity of slavery, and the crimes against Native Americans, while reawakening and reclaiming the lost "voice" of York.

Genres: Poetry, History, African American, Nonfiction, Travel

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Brown Girl Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYiVH...

[♡ Dakota ♡ (Sarcasm is my middle name) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read this if you are looking for a different look at Lewis and Clark’s Expedition that isn’t from their perspective or the perspective you were taught in school. Four Stars.

[Ch_jank-caporale · Rating 5 out of 5]

York was the slave William Clark took with him on the Lewis and Clark expedition. He carried, cooked, scouted, and he saved the expedition on several occasions from hostile natives who proved fascinated by the black "bear-man." York couldn't read or write, so what we know of him largely comes from the journals kept by Lewis and Clark and other white members of the expedition. He is also depicted in paintings serving to commemorate the event.
In this poetic journal, Frank X. Walker gives voice to York, presenting him as a thinking-being, capable of reflecting on his plight as a slave, as a man who misses his wife and family, as an observer of human nature, and as a scout who anticipates danger, confronts it, and whose resourcefulness and improvisations help forge the future of a nation (not to mention save the necks of his white colleagues.) York was eventually freed by Clark, many years later, but through Walker's voice, we come to appreciate how much he yearns for that freedom and how the expedition provides a sense of freedom that gives York hope for a future beyond slavery. This is a remarkable work- both poetry, biography, and historical fiction, and lovely to read though meant for an older audience. (I wish it were illustrated, in fact.)

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Clark took his slave York along when he and Meriwether Lewis traveled across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean. Frank X. Walker brings York to life here in these poems told in the first person. It's clear that York performed a valuable service as an explorer along with the rest of the men, and he was even allowed to cast a vote on the location of one of their winter forts just like any of the others in the expedition. So I was dismayed to learn that Clark treated him so poorly once the expedition was over. I don't blame York for feeling angry at that. I never knew how or when York died, so I was surprised to learn of the two conflicting accounts. I hope he really did end up living with the Indians, who at least respected him. Recommended for an different viewpoint of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sculptor Ed Hamilton gave York a face and a body. Now Frank X. Walker gives York a voice. This collection of poetry is very creative and imaginative. Before all we knew about York was in the journals of Lewis and Clark, but Walker lets York speak by a leap of imagination and empathy. This is a brilliant work.

[Noelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luis Alberto Urrea, in his keynote lecture for The Big Read last fall, recommended in an offhand way Frank X. Walker as an author and Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York as a book that had been influential for him. Never one to turn down a recommendation, I whipped out my phone and used Suggest an Item to place a hold (the WPL didn't own it at the time) right there in the auditorium while Urrea was still talking.

Buffalo Dance is the fictionalized experience of York, William Clark's slave, told through Frank X. Walker's poetry of what the journey might have been like for the slave accompanying the Lewis and Clark expedition. York's experience must be fictionalized because he, though present, has been objectified by history as nothing more than a pack mule. Buffalo Dance has the feeling that York is talking to himself more than to us. He seems to be telling himself his own stories because no one else has asked to hear them. But those stories are well worth listening to and have the potential to make traditional understandings of this bit of history a little bit broader. I wish I was teaching a high school history or English class so I could include this in the curriculum.

[g · Rating 5 out of 5]

One word. Brilliant. The entire concept and layout of this was brilliant. It could not have been any better

Backstory for me and this one:
Went to a bookshop on the same street as a juneteenth festival, and saw that it had an entire upstairs room dedicated to history and I stumbled upon this. I saw that it was poetry (something i haven't tried reading before) and thought, perfect! i'd like to try this out, and it's perfect timing because of juneteenth and it's in that vicinity.

Although it is technically fiction, I still learned a lot from this book. I loved the little excerpts from the actual journals and then Yorks added words. Highly suggested as it's very beautifully written, the nature descriptions were phenomenal. I am most likely going to be rereading this every year around this time.

[s · Rating 4 out of 5]

there’s a stanza in here where york interprets the northern lights as god writing/recording life on earth and it’s so beautiful that i am still thinking about it months later

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautiful collection of poems shares the Lewis and Clark expedition from the perspective of York, the enslaved man owned by William Clark. York narrates this famous journey, recalling crossings and fords, massive buffalo, the racism of his companions, and the awe his black skin inspires in some of the native people they encounter.

Rooted in servitude, York finds a measure of emancipation amid the harsh conditions and daily struggle to survive. In "Electorate," Walker even shares how York and Sacagawea are granted the first votes for a woman, Native person and a black man in the U.S.A. as the expedition decides where to build their winter fort in what is now present-day Oregon.

"North a the big river that bleed into the ochian
Capt. Clark give me a proxy. Sacagawea too
say our words count, then we all have our say
to decide where we gone pitch a fort that winter."

Even that small measure of freedom can't last, though. As the poem concludes, York reflects:

"...I knows not to get too full a myself
'cause come dark, I still have to pick the fleas
off his blanket a skins, so at least he sleep
straight through the night."

That well-earned bitterness festers further as York finds himself forced back into servitude while his companions are lauded upon their return to the East. While a few poems here felt like they slipped into a more contemporary voice, on the whole, Walker does an excellent job imagining the perspective of a historic figure who wasn't allowed to speak for himself.

Swap Meet (excerpt)

The Capts. would point to everything under the sky
say it now belong to their Great White Father
an show off him image on the face side ova big coin
they unwrapped an presented with much putting on.

Sometimes the Chiefs would laugh
an say the Great Spirit who own all this
could not ride on the back a such a small thing.

Sometimes them say nothing.

[Zay Pinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was much better than I anticipated, going into the read I found the voice to be perplexing. Frank X. Walker chose to write this collection with the voice of York, the main character, like a journal. York, an enslaved black man, was on the Lewis and Clark expedition following America's Louisiana Purchase. However, York had been largely disregarded in history because he was a slave. Like most slaves he was illiterate. So, going the journal-like approach was difficult to grasp.

There's great imagery throughout the read, plenty of wilderness scenes, and there seemed to be a deep desire for authenticity while writing this collection. At times, I was iffy on the word choice because York's character spoke like a slave, but there were some poems that sounded like a different voice. It was perplexing to keep up with the other characters at certain points. Nonetheless, it spurred me to do some research after the read, which I think was a key component to writing the book, it's to bring awareness.

[David Grosskopf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of poems is also a researched fictional account of York, William Clark's slave who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition and back. Even without the poetry, this would have been a worthy project, but the poetry captures a strong voice and sensitivity and irony about the experiences, which include interesting relationships with the Native Americans along the way and the tastes of freedom tempered by a moody Clark who beats York to remind him of his place (as documented from a fragment of his letters).

It has a happy ending, though it relies on an ambiguous tidbit of research--it's a clear choice Walker, an Affrilachian poet, chooses to make, and it feels sad and beautiful both.

[J Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walker does a sensational job of removing his own person from this historical fiction of the slave named York that accompanied Lewis and Clark. I say that because the melancholy of hope that is capped for this enslaved man leaves no trace of the current freedoms Walker enjoys. The longing for freedom is complete and overwhelming. I cried at the end of "Ursa Major." The book is not long, a mere 71 pages, but that doesn't mean you are going to read this in an hour or two. The poetry demands your attention long after you have put the book down and tried to move past how this exceptional person was treated by another human.
Read it.

[Jean Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank X. Walker is an imaginative poet. “Buffalo Dance” is a narrative poetic collection based on Clark’s slave, York, who made trip with Lewis and Clark. It’s a quick read. The individual poems vary in quality. York’s narrative voice is varied by the experience at the point in the journey. My favorite poem is “Birth Day” which ends the book. Clark said that York died rather than to admit that he escaped to the west and the Indians who had respected him. “…every winter spent keeping him warm/knocked a little spring out a me.” Nicely done.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When this book is over it will not be enough. You'll have to keep reading, so be sure and have When Winter Comes. I read them both in the airport and I didn't move and was highlighting, using sticky notes, etc. on just about every page. York was the "body slave" for Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Frank X Walker uses historical books and letters written by Lewis and Clark to piece this man's life together. I'm not doing it justice but just read these books.

[Penrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve owned this book for quite a while, maybe since I first me Mr. Walker back in the early oughts. Perhaps I bought it in 2004-05 when he came to do a reading at Sayre.

Walker has obviously done a lot of research here and he makes York into a believable 3-dimensional character with a voice of his own. Still, he also sometimes sounds like a man of the early 21st century.

I like the last poem a lot. Ambiguous…

[Mixy Mixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful work of fictitious words placed on a real person. York himself was of course silenced as a slave but the poet gives an enchanting voice to York. If you’re interested in the Lewis and Clark expedition, poetry, or the history of slavery, I do recommend.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Thoughtful. Provoking. Should be a part of the American Literature curriculum.

[paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular. Will teach alongside Huck Finn this year.

[Elizabeth Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick, enjoyable read. Frank X. Walker is the best!

[George Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

really fucking excellent. especially loved the created explanation of the actual clark journals.

[Sean]

Dog-eared:
"Spirit Mound"
"Vision Quest II"

[Cailinn Chavez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the Expanded Edition.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.
Forgotten History brought to life.

[Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walker paints a beautiful picture of York as an integral member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The creativity of this storytelling is inspiring!

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

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This was an interesting read for me particularly because I dont have much knowledge of Lewis and Clark's expeditions.

The poems are fictitious renderings of what Walker believed York's thoughts and feelings were at the time. Certainly a historical fiction. I admired some of the poems for their depth and though provoking qualities, others fell flat.

[Mckinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glad I tracked this down.

[T.L. Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York is a book of poetry written from the point of view of York, William Clark's servant, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean spanning 1803-1806. Walker researched his subject quite indepth and wrote a series of poetry to tell teh story from York's point of view. Walker handles the subject matter with integrity, honor, and honesty. Buffalo Dance is a fascinating and well paced story written as beautiful, touching poetry.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of poetry, and don't really feel qualified to talk about the merit of poems, but I do know a good story when I read one. In my experience, rare is the poem that also can tell a story. These do that, times ten. I learned so much from these poems, not just in the figurative way, but literally about history and the slave experience on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I highly recommend this collection. I'll be meeting Frank Walker in September; I only hope that he doesn't find me too stupid. :-)

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

p.17 My blackness was greeted with great respect/ an the chil'ren followed me so close they/ become a part a my shadow.
p.29 As I stop to rest an laugh, it come to me/ that every soft an pretty thing God make/ got a hand an ugly to carry with it.

An intriguing collection of poems. The voice of the material is the most interesting aspect of the work. Poems are presented from a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. York, the slave of Captain Clark, narrates his personal journey. Poems are presented in dialect, as though York is speaking.

[Liona · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think poems are meant to be heard, and Frank X. Walker took a crowd of English teachers on a journey across the country with Lewis & Clark but from the perspective of Clark's slave, York. The poems stayed vivid when I read the whole book in the Louisville airport. I intended to savor the poems one at a time on the metro, but I couldn't -- Buffalo Dance pulled me along with the story and the alive words of poetry.