PHILADELPHIA (AP) Philadelphia’s second poet laureate, who focused on taking poetry to neighborhoods and the city’s young people, was outed as a former white nationalist.
In the late 1980s, Frank Sherlock was a 19-year-old skinhead, and vocalist for a white nationalist punk band called New Glory.
He said that period is shameful for him. He says he never considered himself a racist, but had a limited worldview. He said he has transformed.
He was appointed to the yearlong post in 2014 during the administration of Mayor Michael Nutter, who is black.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sherlock’s white nationalist past was revealed in a poem by another local poet posted to Twitter and later deleted.
The poet who outed Sherlock said she was “troubled” that he had kept his past hidden.
