Walker, director of the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts and former director of UK's Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center, is widely recognized as one of Kentucky's leading black poets with work published in numerous journals and anthologies including "Spirit and Flame," The Shooting Star Review, The Java House Anthology, Appalachian Journal, ACE Magazine and Limestone.

"Affrilachia," Walker's first book of collected poems, brings together his finest poetry of the last 10 years. UK English professor Gurney Norman called the book "the most necessary by a Kentucky writer to be published in many years."

"The poems in 'Affrilachia' go a long way toward redefining literary regionalism," Norman said. "They break new ground as they reveal human truths of African-American life in Kentucky."

Walker, a native of Danville, Ky., and UK graduate, is co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, a group of young black writers in Kentucky whose work addresses themes of family, place, struggle for social justice and identity. His reading at UK will begin at 4 p.m. in Room 230 of the Student Center. It is sponsored by the UK Department of English and African-American Student Affairs.