On Wednesday night, poetic words about space, Black identity, and Kentucky spilled out into Grise Hall’s hallways. 

Ronald Davis, known as upfromsumdirt, was the third and final speaker for the Department of English’s Fall 2025 Creative Writing speaker series. During his presentation, he read from two of his published works and provided commentary on his process and purpose for writing. 

upfromsumdirt is a Lexington based poet and artist who specializes in afrosurrealism and afrofuturism. Since beginning to write in 1985, he has published seven poetry books. His books feature his artwork and touch on themes of Black culture with science fiction elements. His work also features playing with words and homonyms to create various meanings. 

“There are poets that are too dour or take themselves too seriously,” said Tom Hunley, the English professor who suggested inviting upfromsumdirt to WKU. “I like poets that appear to be having fun when they write and when they perform, and he’s that kind of poet.” 

upfromsumdirt primarily read poems from his latest collection, “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife,” published this year through the University Press of Kentucky. 

In his reading, upfromsumdirt said that all of his poems carry anti-establishment themes. 

“Even my love poems, somewhere within the germ or the brain of truth, is overthrow everything and let’s start over,” upfromsumdirt said. 

He later read from his 2023 publication, “The Second Stop is Jupiter,” which focused on his love of space and afrofuturism and included nods to some iconic science fiction pieces of pop culture. 

Towards the end of his presentation, audience members had the opportunity to ask questions. Questions ranged from his artistic relationship with his partner, former Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson, to his references to “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” in his poems. 

Adrian Russo, a WKU creative writing alum who traveled from Elizabethtown for the presentation, asked more about the multiple personalities upfromsumdirt mentioned when writing and interacting with others. 

“I think (this reading is) just gonna give me more permission to play with my work and look into mixing other genres with poetry,” Russo said. “I feel like a lot of people think of poetry as this high academic thing, but you can play with sci-fi and genre, and there’s so much room to work with that.”