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The former poet laureate of Kentucky will speak at Kentucky State University as part of the Center for Research on the Eradication of Educational Disparities (CREED) lecture series.

Frank X Walker, poet laureate of Kentucky from 2013-15, will discuss the healing qualities of music, poetry and art, including the cathartic potential of collaborative works in the lecture entitled “Strange Fruit: Mediating Our Pain Through the Arts.”

Walker is also a 2014 NAACP Image Award winner for outstanding literary work in poetry, as well as a multimedia artist and professor.

Walker is the third lecturer in the CREED series. The first two lectures featured CREED scholar-in-residence Dr. William Turner and Jewel Burks Solomon.

Walker will speak Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. in the David H. Bradford Hall Little Theater. The event is free and open to the public.