Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Celebrating National Poetry Month 2025

4/6/2025

(2025 National Poetry Month poster featuring a quote by poet Naomi Shihab Nye and artwork by Christy Mandin)

A recent article on the poetry of Marc Thomas, the author of Talking to the Machines and Oher Poems, made me think about why, and how much, I have always enjoyed celebrating National Poetry Month. As with Thomas’s work, which I first became aware of during a Local Author Day event in Savannah, Georgia (USA), it has largely been about the discovery of what different poets bring to their individual applications of literary craftsmanship.

A lot of people cheered and applauded when the news broke in 1996 that the Academy of American Poets was launching observations of the inaugural National Poetry Month (NPM) annual celebrations. The Academy encouraged individual writers and organizations everywhere to participate in ways that suited them best. Creatives in my hometown responded to the call by putting on events where many would expect to find them: like libraries, schools, bookstores, and coffee shops. Others hosted happenings at unexpected locations: like nightclubs, churches, bars, parks, and river-front walkways.

As one of the organizers of such events, I was happy to help make spoken-word presentations by both local and national talents, as well as literary panel discussions, accessible to members of diverse communities. In addition, my position as an editor for the Savannah Literary Journal allowed me to publish works by such future city and state poet laureates as: Darryl Lorenzo Wellington of Sante Fe, New Mexico; and, Anis Mojgani in Oregon. Possibly more thrilling than anything else was occasionally witnessing an audience member “catch fire” for the first time and begin composing their own lines at one event, then reciting them at the next.

An Alignment of Voices

It is well known that poetry, as many understand it today, had its beginnings long before written expressions of it. Common belief proposes it developed during prehistoric times as an extension of, or variation on, storytelling. My own theory is that poetry initially evolved out of instinctive spontaneous prayers uttered as appeals to nature or to unknown, but suspected, higher powers. Viewed through such an intuitive transcendent lens, it was amazing to observe how different neophytes, centuries later, made their personal connections to this ancient practice.

There came, year after year, scholars who adapted their long-restrained literary passions to such academic formulations as sonnets, odes, and villanelles (a favorite among friends at the Poetry Society of Georgia) with respectful nods to Japanese haiku (with which I’ve experimented for a series of angel poems published in The River of Winged Dreams). Numerous cultural heritage enthusiasts aligned their voices with the French surrealists, Spanish ballads or romancero, traditional African praise poems, or the jazz- and blues-influenced writings published during the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement.

(Aberjhani quote graphic from “Beyond Literacy Link A dedicated space to ponder, reflect, and converse about life, literacy, and learning.”)

Particularly notable was the fact that members of an entire generation––during those late 1990s days as annual observations NPM expanded––took their poetic cues from slamfests, spoken word open mics, and the fluidity of Hip-Hop lyrics often composed in a heated flow of spontaneity. For a lot of such poets, that meant generally foregoing textbooks and, instead, memorizing recordings and recitals. At the time, I was a bookseller, and was as amazed as I was amused when dictionaries of rhymes began to outsell sonnets by Shakespeare or collected poems by Maya Angelou.

The AD Community Experience

Just as I took immense pleasure in participating in different forms of NPM during its earliest days, I experience a similar kind of joy upon joining the AuthorsDen community years later (just after completing Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance with Sandra L. West in 2003). The AD members with whom I connected were so faithful to their relationships with poetry and so generous when it came to mutual supportiveness that they often inspired both the poet and the essayist in me to write about them. These are a few examples:

• VISIONS OF THE POETS, Part 1: Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU
• Visions of the Poets, Part 2: The Hanging Man Dreams.
• Visions of the Poets, 3-A: Journey Through Universes Beyond the Visible

My background as a journalist and encyclopedist made writing the above somewhat automatic, but I became speechless when various members presented their assessments of my work in poetry or essays by them.

Coming Full Circle

All of this brings me back, full circle if you will, to Marc Thomas’s Talking to the Machines and what the first section of the book says about humanity’s current uneasy relationship with generative artificial intelligence. The satisfaction which some take in being able to prompt generative AI to construct lines of text which mimic human composition is easily understood. Like current rapid-fire AI developments in general, it is innovative, exciting (even mesmerizing), and provides a kind of service useful for supporting different endeavors. Despite its documented threat to the relevance of human-generated works. That such poems impressively duplicate academic formulations well enough cannot be denied because, ironically enough, the formulaic nature of some poetry makes doing so, arguably, easy for digital programs.

The experience, nevertheless, of prompting software to produce a composition is very different from the experience of deeply contemplating a love affair, wrestling with the world’s injustices, appreciating the wonders of nature, or intentionally confronting painful truths, and transcribing those meditations into written or spoken verse. The soulful depths of the stories behind how certain poems emerge out of lived realities is a part of that mysterious essence which has defied scientific explanations for centuries and continues, even now, to confirm what it means to be an authentically creative artist.

Celebrating National Poetry Month. Quote by Aberjhani.

None of this is meant to take anything away from AI’s ability to enhance productivity in a variety of professional situations—or for that matter to improve the quality of human life overall. In my own flesh-blood-and-spirit-generated human life, AI (along with human coaches) has helped me create objective literary criticisms, which I have edited for accuracy and clarity, to post in my AI Literary Chat Salon. I have also used it as a tool in the production, or editing, of some original concept art creations. And yes, the increased efficiency is appreciated.

What it cannot do for me is replace the psychic and spiritual infrastructures that give meaning to words like community, personal growth, and intimacy. What none of us should prompt AI to do, I would propose, is delete the connections and practices that go beyond providing meanings to endowing what we call existence itself with soul-infused value, and enriching it with an innate kind of poetry worth celebrating in small or big ways every day of the year. That includes this one.

Aberjhani
National Poetry Month 2025

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Rainbow-Song for a Polarized World

3/3/2025

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1.
A rainbow in one sense
is woven…
from a beautiful tear-stained reconciliation
between light chasing its need…
to at all costs avoid…
death by ignoble stagnation
and waterdrops’ thirsty desire
to discover themselves anew…
through a passion-driven dream of fire.

2.
That forest path known as Tzu’s way
is not so very different…
first a butterfly kiss that glows…
the color of dawn’s golden eyes…
then another, wet and hungry,
painted like midnight’s indigo skies.
The beauty of the one echoes
the secret joy of the other…
cradling harmony inside a tattered soul.

3.
Form and substance and mystery…
silence the war-drums of chaos…swirl
and give shape to a chromatic revelation…
Clouds rumble rhythms of peace
and hum an ancient oath…
swollen with history’s blood-hot creations.
From opposite ends of time and space
a dream and a song quietly embrace…like
the sun’s murmuring lips upon the moon’s blue face.

By Aberjhani ©
First published in 2015 in Poetry Life and Times

FOR MORE POETRY-RELATED POSTS PLEASE CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING FOR FULL ACCESS & TO READ FOR FREE

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Paris, France and the 2024 Olympics on My Mind

7/24/2024

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"Eiffel Tower Days and Deja vu Nights Number 1" digital painting by Aberjhani. Full art prints and decorative gift items may be purchased on artist-author's Pixels and Fine Art America website profiles.

A lot of readers already know that I’ve been involved in a long-distance love affair with the city of Paris, France, for quite a few years. I’ve shared that particular passion through books, artwork, and stories. With the 2024 summer Olympic Games, now officially tagged as Paris 2024, set to dazzle the world from July 26 – August 11, there’s no better time than now to share the poem below from Visions of A Skylark Dressed in Black.

Will this poem, or the Olympic Games themselves, resolve the disruptive conflicts and historic political developments playing out across the globe right now? Of course not, but it can provide a momentary (for some possibly longer) breather from those more distressing issues flooding our social media feeds these days:

Poem: My One Favorite City

Though African-American by birth, Josephine Baker rose to international stardom when she adopted France as her preferred country of residence and became one of leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

My one favorite city is a kiss shared with you.
Make it on any street corner whatsoever,
above any orphaned moon you might please,
beneath a flag on this planet or another,
so long as the lips are yours and the pleasure ours.

I champion all laws forbidding my life
to wander too far from yours.
And I worship the swirling patterns
of divine satisfaction that adorn
my soul’s wretched skyline
each time your breath swallows mine.

Festivals in New York cannot match
the riot-filled crush of our stars pressed together.
In neither Moscow nor Madrid
do the domes gleam with the kind of gold
that your whispers melt inside my heart.

My only favorite city is a kiss shared with you.
Make it on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday night
or Monday morning. Otherwise, give me Paris
with your face painted on every window.
Or give me a sidewalk café high up in heaven,
where angels and the light adore you as much as I.

(from VISIONS OF A SKYLARK DRESSED IN BLACK)

For a few more free-to-read posts on my passion for Paris, please check out the following:

For Love of Paris and a More Compassionate World (Part 2) …of the avoidable carnage in Paris, Syria, Nigeria, Mali, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Equally marvelous ...
A Story of Cities, Lights, and Dreams …memory of being in Paris, France, just after World War II, a time when a number of African Americans ...
Josephine Baker and Chiquita Abstract Magenta
Josephine Baker Chiquita the Cheetah Number 2
Josephine Baker Sophisticated Diva
Josephine Baker Stardust Silhouette

Thank you for visiting and reading.

By Aberjhani
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days
and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah

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Days of Midnight Madness 30 Years On

2/1/2024

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(“Mad Days in Savannahland” art by Aberjhani 2024© for Bright Skylark LP)

There are not too many living writers who can claim to have authored books which had the kind of impact upon a city which John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has had on Savannah, Georgia (USA). The boosts it provided for Savannah’s tourism and film industries have been well documented. Appropriately enough, during this 2024, 30th anniversary, of “The Book’s” publication, a commemorative edition with a new afterward by the author has been released and a musical adaptation for Broadway is reportedly in production. Everything just noted means February 5, 2024, will mark the 30th anniversary of the first in a series of book signing I had with Berendt and various nonfiction characters featured in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. My part in the story of those now legendary times is told in the story “Days of Midnight Madness, published in the book Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind. an excerpt from which is shared below:

A Taste of Success and of Madness on the Way

We had worked hard to make the signing as successful as it was turning out to be and I was glad about that. Aside from knowing we were on our way to logging a very good day sales-wise I was also intrigued by the other more metaphysical and aesthetic aspects of what was occurring. It was so much like a plot or theme from a Woody Allen movie, or a magical realism novel, in which these characters came alive to add their own preferred twists to the author’s celebrated story. The surrealistic difference was these characters had come alive long before the publication of their writer’s richly-embroidered text. Yet it was through Berendt’s work they were discovering the power and significance of their own voices. The rightness of the moment in a way reflected the author’s stated purpose in his note following the afterword:
“…Where the narrative strays from strict nonfiction, my intention has been to remain faithful to the characters and to the essential drift of events as they really happened.”
An essential drift of events was certainly happening at the live moment. The one character I wished could have been there (had she still been alive) was Minerva, the so-called voodoo priestess. Though as I thought about it, I realized many people might have stayed away if she had been there. Still, I would have liked to hear her impressions of what was happening and the impact she thought it might have on the city. While that simply was not possible, I would a couple of years later have such a conversation with the gifted intuitive Angel B. Hakim [now Dr. Hakim], the same individual to whom the producers of A&E’s Midnight in Savannah documentary would turn for comments on Minerva.

Not one to overlook the value of a rare literary occurrence, I pulled out the copy of Midnight that Berendt had signed for me and during breaks in the crush got autographs from every live character present except Emma Kelly. The first time I asked her to sign it and stood smiling beside her, she looked in the opposite direction and I thought she might have misunderstood me. After the second and third request, I understood that for whatever reason she might have “The Lady of 6,000 Songs” did not want to favor me with her signature. I had not yet made the acquaintance of the woman known as “Badness,” Miriam K. Center, who for me one day would become a source of inspired Goodness. (Eventually I not only added her autograph to the rest of the cast’s but experienced the pleasure of publishing Scarlett O’Hara Can Go to Hell, Center’s popular memoir.)

While cleaning up after all the excitement, the customer service manager gave me a large manila envelope with my name on it. Opening it, I found inside an 8 x 11 black-and-white head shot of Chablis in full glamour mode with hair swept back on the right and hanging in a partial bang on the left, large bright diamond-shaped earrings, and chin resting upon jeweled fingers. In the lower left corner was what appeared to be the photographer’s name, LaRosa, and “The Lady Chablis” centered in Embassy script beneath the image itself. At the beginning of chapter seven in the book she had written what I figured she probably wrote for everyone, penning after my name, “Ain’t Life Grand!!” It was certainly looking more and more that way for her with each passing day and every sale of her friend’s book.
Following that singular triumphant moment which boosted our normal sales by at least 200 percent, store owners of one kind or another throughout the downtown area began to hold Midnight signings featuring characters from its pages. They came often to my store to buy cartons of autographed stock wholesale, about $14 per copy and fourteen books per box, so they could go back downtown and sell them for twice the amount. Sometimes more than double or triple their tax-free cost. Hillis recognized the value of being both one of the principal players in the drama, Mandy, and a business owner. Her account, again as relayed in The Vamp of Savannah, of discovering an associate was forging her name to sell autographed copies of Midnight at the Hamilton-Turner House, gives some indication of just how thick, lucrative, and sinister this new-urban South plot was becoming.

By Aberjhani, excerpted from Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

8/1/2022

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Pandemics, wars, racism, and climate change have ways of derailing some of our very best stated intentions. Start-ups fail to get started. Planned families get put on hold. Dream vacations remain dreams to be pursued another day.

While my Bright Skylark Literary Productions has taken more than a few unsettling hits of its own this year, I’m grateful for what has been achieved up to this point. Moreover, there’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to promising projects still in development.

A Couple of Highlights So Far

Participation in two major offline events played significant roles helping to reconnect with live audiences and patrons after the restrictive distances imposed by COVID-19 for the past two years. The first event was the Authors Day observance held March 27 in Lafayette Square in Savannah, Georgia (USA). The display table showcasing Bright Skylark products was more unique than most participants’ because it not only contained books, but first-print artwork and photography, greeting cards, and collectible giveaways. Copies of every available catalog title sold along with framed visual works. Overall, the day easily qualified as a win-win for all involved.

The second major offline event also took place in Savannah when I accepted an invitation to participate in a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Moth storytelling organization. Founded by popular bestselling author George Dawes Green, the celebration coincided with the release of Green’s new novel: The Kingdoms of Savannah (presently an Amazon “Editor’s Pick” and sitting in the top 5 best sellers of 3 fiction categories).

A memorable Moth 25th anniversary storytelling night at the Gingerbread House in Savannah, Georgia (USA), July 18, 2022.

What made the occasion especially momentous for me was that it marked my first time, in roughly 14 years, stepping onto a stage as a “raconteur.” Moth storytelling events have become major, and even legendary, cultural happenings wherever they take place, so it was thrilling to share the stage with fellow storytellers: Edgar Oliver, Jon Goode, Opollo Johnson, and Green himself. Further rounding out the evening were several musical performances, including by: internationally renowned jazz vocalist Cynthia Utterbach, Velvet Caravan co-founder Ricardo Ochoa, and virtuoso guitarist Travis Pullman.

A Look at Things to Come

My forthcoming art book on the pandemic, which includes letters and poems from myself as well as authors around the world, was first announced more than a year ago. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis, with U.S. President Joe Biden becoming the latest high-profile case, continues to underscore the value of this undertaking. The selection of texts for the project was completed in early 2022, and 90-100 works of original art have been created to correspond with the texts. Among the contributors are: celebrated educator Dr. Patricia M. Stewart, legendary San Francisco poet and educator Duncan McNaughton, England’s multi-talented Sara L. Russell, and additional mindful creatives whose voices enrich the volume in unique and important ways.

Click here to view art from pandemic book project

At this point, Bright Skylark is working with a highly-regarded publisher to make the title available to readers, art lovers, and booksellers in the United States and around the world. More details along with excerpts and sample art will be shared in either a separate blog for the book, or on a full website devoted to it. Anyone wishing to donate to support the effort is invited to do so by clicking here.

It is not often that someone is featured in a major literary publication both as a visual artist and as a literary one. That is, however, the case with the 2022 Flannery O’Connor Review (Vol. 20, published by Georgia College) due out in August. The review has on its cover my Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle painting titled Sermon in the Valley of Broken Angels.

The watermark seen here on the cover of the 2022 edition of the FLANNERY O’CONNOR REVIEW does not appear on the actual journal. The Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle creation is by Aberjhani and titled: Sermon in the Valley of Broken Angels. As seen on the cover, this edition of the review, which is published by Georgia College in Milledgeville, GA, where Flannery O’Connor spent most of her adult life, is a commemoration of 20th and 50th anniversaries.

Additional original works are included inside the review along with a poem on Flannery O’Connor titled “History and Prophets’ Prerogatives.” The published artworks will remain available to view only within the pages of the journal until selected pieces are presented for sale as prints, or placed on exhibition.

The publication of my art and poetry in The Flannery O’Connor Review is particularly important because it helps further clarify my position on the overall complexity of O’Connor’s life and work. It also, I hope, helps demonstrate in general the vital role which creativity plays when it comes to defining and addressing the most pressing issues of our times.

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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Celebrating National Poetry Month 2025

An Alignment of Voices

The AD Community Experience

Coming Full Circle

Aberjhani
National Poetry Month 2025

Feel free to use this form to contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions or the section after it to comment on this article.

Rainbow-Song for a Polarized World

By Aberjhani ©
First published in 2015 in Poetry Life and Times

FOR MORE POETRY-RELATED POSTS PLEASE CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING FOR FULL ACCESS & TO READ FOR FREE

To contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions, please use this form. To comment on the post, please go the comments section after this one.

Paris, France and the 2024 Olympics on My Mind

Poem: My One Favorite City

Comments on this post may be made in the section after this one. Feel free to use this form to contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions.

Days of Midnight Madness 30 Years On

A Taste of Success and of Madness on the Way

Contact Human Author-Poet-Artist Aberjhani
at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

A Couple of Highlights So Far

A Look at Things to Come

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Artist-Author Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Celebrating National Poetry Month 2025

An Alignment of Voices

The AD Community Experience

Coming Full Circle

AberjhaniNational Poetry Month 2025

Feel free to use this form to contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions or the section after it to comment on this article.

Rainbow-Song for a Polarized World

By Aberjhani ©First published in 2015 in Poetry Life and Times

FOR MORE POETRY-RELATED POSTS PLEASE CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING FOR FULL ACCESS & TO READ FOR FREE

To contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions, please use this form. To comment on the post, please go the comments section after this one.

Paris, France and the 2024 Olympics on My Mind

Poem: My One Favorite City

Comments on this post may be made in the section after this one. Feel free to use this form to contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions.

Days of Midnight Madness 30 Years On

A Taste of Success and of Madness on the Way

Contact Human Author-Poet-Artist Aberjhani ​at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

A Couple of Highlights So Far

A Look at Things to Come

AberjhaniCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Artist-Author Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Aberjhani
National Poetry Month 2025

By Aberjhani ©
First published in 2015 in Poetry Life and Times

Contact Human Author-Poet-Artist Aberjhani
at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind