Gene Walker was born in Houston, Texas. He studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, where architecture was discussed with enormous poetic emphasis. It was very conceptual. Our critics always spoke about everything in these grandly poetic and metaphorical ways. I used to call it “Rhode Island School of Metaphors and Analogies.” I think that is where I really learned to see and to speak I can see now. I am still trying to capture these moments; that moment in which something becomes familiar to catch it without killing it. He was also awarded First Place for Poetry in the 2011 PEN Prison Writing Program.
Gene Walker
Articles by Gene Walker
Monday July 7
Feasts Beneath the Cottonwood Tree
It was our deep and silent secret that lined my pockets with silver dollars and kept my cigar box stacked high with dollar bills. I quickly learned the power of money and just what it could buy. It would not be until much, much later, in my late 20s, would I also realize, just what it had stolen.
Wednesday May 4
Longevity
I cannot sustain your voyages,
these corrosive minglings of
hydrogen and oxygen,
seeking the green rivers of your blooms.