The University of Idaho Argonaut

The University of Idaho’s Office of Multicultural Affairs offers educational non-required reading with a book circle in celebration of Black History Month presented by author Frank X Walker.
“I understand that students have a lot to read for their classes,” said Leathia Botello, coordinator for OMA. “With Frank X Walker’s poems, students might grasp a more rounded world view.”
The Book Circle for Black History Month will focus on “Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York,” a collection of poems by Walker.

Walker successfully dives into the mind of York and innovatively blurs the lines between poetry, fiction and history to tell the story of the infamous Lewis and Clark expedition from the perspective of Clark’s slave, York.
Over the course of the saga and through poems, one is treated to subtle commentaries on literacy, slavery, American Indians, buffalo and the environment.
Though “Buffalo Dance” purposely references historic accounts and facts, it is fictionalized poetry and Walker’s rare blend of history and art breathes life into an important but overlooked historical figure.

OMA will bring Walker to read and discuss his works on Thursday Feb. 28 in Janssen Engineering Building Room 104.
Walker 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.

Walker regularly teaches in writing programs like Fishtrap in Oregon and SplitRock at the University of Minnesota. He currently serves as a visiting professor of writing, rhetoric and communication at Transylvania University.
With around 10 participants, the book circles offer an intimate environment.
“There is no quiz over the books and students can feel comfortable and share their opinions,” Botello said. “We usually have three or four meetings before we bring the author, as a group different parts of the book are discuss and people seem to engage with one another.”

Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs Christina Velo joins the book circle as well.
“One can meet different people that they might not run into in their everyday life,” Velo said. “Today students are so tight with the friends that they have now, they might not have an opportunity like this to meet new friends.”
Velo said OMA has plans for future book circles.

“The Office of Multicultural Affairs would like to work with the university to create a summer read for incoming freshman, that way they could all have a common experience,” she said. “Students should feel free to dive into a different world, an unfamiliar world.”
Velo said recruitment and retention of multi-cultural students is an important goal.

“Each member of the UI community makes a valuable contribution to the intellectual and social culture of the university,” Velo said.