Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (Kentucky Voices, 3)

In Buffalo Dance, Frank X Walker innovatively blurs the lines between poetry, fiction, and history to tell the story of the infamous Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of Clark’s slave, York, the first African American to traverse the continent. Breathing lyrical life into an important but overlooked historical figure, these poems vividly present the intricacies of York’s personality and form a narrative of his saga—a physical journey from the plantation to the great northwest and a spiritual journey from a humble servant to a man yearning for fulfillment and freedom.

In the narrative fabric these poems weave, York bears the burden of heavy labor as the expedition travels hundreds of miles of waterways in search of a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, York empathizes with the Native Americans he encounters and joins them in mourning his masters' dominion over the land and their misuse of the Earth’s riches. The awe-inspiring natural beauty of the American west that his masters will despoil move York to the realization that "every soft an pretty thing God make / got a hard an ugly to carry with it."

Walker's poetry relates York’s bitter tales of his elders’ abductions, devastating memories of fleeting moments shared with his wife, feverish dreams of running free with buffalo and flying unfettered over the continent, and imagined promises to family and friends to "return and bring … you wings." Though York remains a slave throughout his travels, Walker endows him with experiences and emotions that liberate his spirit though his body remains enslaved.

At the journey’s end, after experiencing life beyond the plantation and gaining insight into nature, freedom, justice, and man’s inhumanity to man, York knows that "the search for the treasure / was the real treasure." Walker eloquently conveys these moments of transformation in York’s life, and the result is a celebration of the beauty and wisdom of one man’s soul.