Nikky Finney

Nikky Finney herself is a national figure.  Her awards include the National Book Award for Poetry, Head Off & Split in 2011, the Benjamin Franklin Awards (Independent Booksellers Association), First Place for Poetry, The World Is Round in 2004, a Honorary Doctorate of Humanities, Claflin University in 2002, she was entered into the Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, Chicago, Illinois in 2002, the PEN Beyond Margins Award, Rice, New York City in 1999 and theKentucky Arts Council, Al Smith Fellowship in 1999. She is also is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, a group of students who welcomed Finney and took some of her writing and english at the University of Kentucky. 

One poet like Finney, is Frank X Walker . He is the author of Affrilachia, Black Box, Buffalo Dance, When Winter Come, Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, and has been widely published and anthologized and is the Poet Laureate of Kentucky.