 May is Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love Month at Bright Skylark Literary Productions. (Title art graphic collage by Aberjhani) "He used the word 'nourishing' to refer to Vann's work. And the more I looked through the work seriously, and took my time, that term [seemed] quite apropos. The art and poetry of Elemental nourishes the soul, the mind, and the aesthetic." Every now and then I get a good sense of what it might feel like to be a phoenix waking up as a pile of ash and bones which suddenly burst into new flaming life. It was kind of like that recently while continuing my ongoing recovery from the hurricanes of 2016 (Matthew) and 2017 (Irma) to prepare for the 2018 stormy-weather season. In the course of going through yet another pile of unsorted thumb drives, DVDs, CDs, and mini cassettes, I discovered a lost treasure: a DVD filmed by the gifted polymath Benjamin Bacon (known to friends and colleagues as BeBe) labeled "Elemental, Early Morning Light Productions, by Luther E. Vann, Final Cut, Jepson Gallery, Savannah, GA, May 29, 2008." It is not something which will ever challenge the global impact of director Ryan Coogler's game-changing Black Panther film, but it has added immeasurably to the 2018 10th Anniversary Celebration of the publication of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love (ISBN 9780972114271). The video, shot just as YouTube and social media were developing their considerable digital muscles, captures in raw fashion a singular moment in the history of cultural arts in the United States. The program that evening included my friend Luther's debut effort as a videographer, a short bio-documentary titled Coming Home, in which he recorded me reciting the poem from which the video took its title, and chronicled his days in New York City pursuing his craft while living in the basement of a friend's apartment on Washington Square.  Artist Luther E. Vann honing his skills in the basement of a friends apartment in NYC circa 1973. (Photo by Chris Torres. Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection) In addition to Luther, program participants included: Dr. Ja A. Jahannes, musician Travis Biggs, The Telfair's Friends of African-American Art (who did so much to make the evening possible), its then director Steven High, curator Harry DeLorme, and many patrons, supporters, and fans. They all combined intentions and resources to demonstrate art's ability to endow a diverse community with a single beautiful purpose. That potential is one which has eluded too many in 2018 as educational institutions and organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts have seen their budgets butchered at a time when what creatives gift to society possibly has never been more needed. The current political assaults on freedom of the press and individual expression make it even more important to savor the kind of rarity represented by Elemental's launch ten years ago. Moreover, the event takes on greater and greater significance because some of the key geniuses who made it happen are no longer with us on the physical plane and others have taken on new missions in different cities or countries. Vann died April 6, 2016, and Jahannes on July 5, 2015. (I last communicated with violinist Travis Biggs a few months before Luther passed but since then have not received any responses to phone messages or emails). Sensory Brilliance Dr. Jahannes' contribution to the celebration remains particularly memorable because with his eloquent, insightful, and often humorous comments on the art and poetry of Elemental he both "stole the show" and gave it back to the audience as a perfect gift. He had been asked to introduce the Coming Home video precisely because of his familiarity with our work both as individuals and as a team. In his words: "Aberjhani and Luther Vann have dynamic synergism in their poetry and their paintings...'Luther Vann's paintings will enrich our community for years to come,' said Steven High in a preface to Elemental. So will the poetry of Aberjhani..." He spoke with infectious ease when comparing Luther's work to that of painters as diverse as the Norwegian master Edvard Munch and the iconic Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. He did the same when pointing out parallels between it and musicians such as the classical composer Antonin Dvorchak and giants of jazz John Coltrane and Miles Davis. An accomplished photographer himself, Jahannes further described as Vann as "a remarkable storyteller" and "a sensory artist" whose images engage viewers' attention on multiple levels: "He's a master of sensory brilliance. His work is visual, captivating, and viscerally engaging... If you look at these paintings, you can almost hear them. They are auditory. There are voices emitted by color and arrangement. They're kinesthetic. Energy [is] generated by the arrangement of pulsating hues... They are tactile. You can almost feel the texture by the way he layers and juxtaposes color and arranges symbols and images..." These observations have since helped various scholars and art lovers to more fully understand what they are viewing when going through the pages of the book, or standing in front of Luther's work at the Telfair Museum of Art or elsewhere. The Deep Road to Infinity Long before Elemental made cultural arts history in Savannah, I had become an admirer of Dr. Jahannes's poetry and essay collection, Truthfeasting. For that reason, I felt more than a little honored by his generous comments on the body of my published works and was thrilled to hear him recite the following passage: We take the deep road to infinity. His willingness to lend his voice in service to something greater than either of our individual ambitions was a large part of what defined Elemental's thematic substance. It brought to mind the great Lucille Clifton’s famous dictum that when it comes to identifying yourself as a poet and actually writing poetry, "One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated." The celebratory evening of May 29, 2008, marked the culmination of an almost two-decade campaign to breathe life into a project which had survived, and in part been shaped by, the turbulence born of two creative individuals' private, social, political, and professional lives. The luxury of having finally reached a point of relief nearly overshadowed the excitement of having achieved a long-sought triumph. We soon realized we had completed only one more stage of a perpetually interactive process which would, much like the book, continue to unfold in layers of color and sparks of revelation. NEXT: Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections & renewed hopes (part 2): illumination Aberjhani ©May 2018
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 “It had been more than a year since the Joker’s conquest of America and we were all still in shock and going through the stages of grief but now we needed to come together and set love and beauty and solidarity and friendship against the monstrous forces that faced us. Humanity was the only answer to the cartoon. I had no plan except love. I hoped another plan might emerge in time but for now there was only holding each other tightly and passing strength to each other, body to body, mouth to mouth, spirit to spirit, me to you.” –Salman Rushdie (The Golden House) Production-wise, in addition to the list of essays and poem noted in the previous post, 2017 will go down in my personal history as the year I completed the long-promised book of essays on different aspects of life in Savannah, Georgia (USA). Among the topics addressed in the book are: the increasing wrath of hurricanes, slavery of the past and present-day human-trafficking, the cultural arts, family life, the legacies of James Alan McPherson and Flannery O’Connor, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and the enduring allure of the city of Paris, France. Not too long ago, I responded to a tweet by fellow author J.K. Rowling in which she proposed something which prompted me to think about the scope of material covered in my book: “…If I had listened to 'the rules' back in 1990, there would be no Harry Potter. Stories about schools are passé. 95k words is too long” (https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/928688419332657153). I thanked her with the following reply: @jk_rowling You just gave me a lot 2 think abt. I've been thinking my latest manuscript might actually be 2 #books, not 1. Btw I was a #bookseller in 1990 & HP [much later, around 1998] got me a sales bonus. #Thanks4That Rowling’s comment––though she may have meant differently from how I first interpreted it–– made me wonder if, in my zeal to write a new kind of creative nonfiction about life in Southeast Georgia as it relates to a single individual and the larger world, I had overreached. She had noted the length specifically in regard to “Stories about schools.” But when I picked up copies of The World and Me, and The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I estimated each was no longer than 45,000 to 50,000 words. My manuscript by comparison was closer to what JK Rowling––or publishers responding to early Harry Potter manuscripts––had described as “too long.” Then again, Ibram X. Kendi’s National book Award Winning volume, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas, is almost 600 pages long. So which was preferable: concision or heft? This quandary, I decided, is by no means a tragedy because the new manuscript is written in such a way that it can be published as either a single large edition suitable for attracting those impressed by authorial range, or, as two separate corresponding books attractive to readers who prefer more compact volumes. The popularity of having options could ultimately add to the votes in favor of two volumes rather than one. For right now, the forced considerations provide further evidence of a year which turned out to be exceptionally productive despite endless streams of political, financial, and other kinds of unruly disruption. Rebirth of a Visual ArtistThe other important production news of the year 2017 came from the launch of the Postered Chromatic Poetics store at Fine Art America. As happy as I am that the store opened, it was one of those developments which evolved naturally out of already-established activities as opposed to stemming from a planned enterprise. Digital art, photography, and mixed media creations have expanded my capacities for communicating literary and philosophical observations about life as we experience it on different physical, mental, and spiritual levels. They increasingly provide frames, inspiration, and useful commentary for some of my most accessed writings.  It was quite an honor when supporters of the Renaming the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge Symposium were presented with gift cards of my Savannah River Bridge The Morning after Hurricane Matthew No 2 as commemorative keepsakes for the historic event. (All of my Postered Chromatic Poetics artwork is currently available until January 7, 2018, at 40 percent off using promo code MEKCFJ). This specific piece formerly was named The Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge The Morning after Hurricane Matthew No. 2 for the sake of historical accuracy but more and more it seemed self-defeating to keep using Talmadge’s name while simultaneously calling for its removal from the bridge. On Eulogies and Elegies Diverse professional priorities and obligations made it impossible for me to respond, as I often have in the past, to the loss of every beloved figure in 2017 with individual poems or essays. Actress-singer Della Reese, actor Nelsan Ellis, playwright-actor Sam Shepard, actor Robert Gillaume, and rock and roll legend Fats Domino are only a few for whom I did not get a chance to write the kind of tribute I would have preferred. Thankfully, social media made it possible to at least acknowledge most of those to whom we bid farewell during the previous year. I did a little better when it came to jazz master Al Jarreau and the great human rights advocate Dick Gregory:
Prospects and Milestones What does all of this mean as we settle into the year 2018? Simply that a lot good ground work has been laid to increase the potential for significant accomplishments over the next 12 months. In light of difficulties so many of us are facing on personal, local, national, and international levels, that is a valuable prospect to keep in mind. We can add to those prospects a number of notable milestones towards which we may look forward:
Positive as well as negative world events are going to have their say when it comes to whatever plans and resolutions we declare for this brand New Year 2018. That’s just the way reality rolls and it is all the more reason to salvage the best of everything worthwhile gained in 2017 while preparing to step up our games with just a little bit more inspired drive and determination for 2018. Aberjhani 8 January 2018 Bright Skylark Literary Productions About AberjhaniOn any given day of the week, the creator of Postered Chromatic Poetics and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Aberjhani, may be found wearing any number of hats: historian, visual artist, poet, advocate for compassion, novelist, journalist, photographer, and editor. Having recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) he is currently writing a full-length play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.  (Chaos of 2017 sets stage for 2018 Postered Poetics art by Aberjhani) “Men and women who dedicate their lives to the realization of their gifts tend the office of that communion by which we are joined to one another, to our times, to our generation, and to the [human] race.” ––Lewis Hyde (The Gift) I am ending the year 2017 the same way I started it: by recommitting myself to life-affirming values and productive best-practices. The hope is such commitment will help me and others continue to steer our way past the debris of political chaos and social nihilism which characterized too much of 2017 and thereby make 2018 a time of much greater unity and productivity. In 2017 this translated into doing anything and everything necessary to complete a nonfiction book project on which I had been working for nearly a decade. It also meant increasing efforts to encourage the use of compassion as a primary tool for nonviolent conflict resolution. Being able to say I met with significant measures of success on both fronts is a good feeling. These individual accomplishments, however, become much less satisfactory when considering how little an impact the call for compassion had on those who throughout the year 2017 convinced themselves that mass murder, as uselessly insane as it is, was a viable approach to achieving some kind of victory. Or some form of favor with divine authority. Historic Tipping PointWhile striving to reach certain goals (about which more will be said a little later) that component of history known as current events frequently interrupted my plans with its own agenda. Like authors, journalists, and artists all over the world watching the clashes between political uprisings and humanitarian urgencies, I responded in the best ways I could. Some, like the massacre of 305 people at the al Rawda Mosque in Egypt on November 24 and the killing of 58 people (along with the loss of millionaire gunman Stephen Craig Paddock’s life) on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada (USA) on October 1 (just to give two examples) left me speechless for days; I was astounded at our collective inability to evolve beyond an apparent addiction to the cruelest kinds of pandemonium. In addition: extreme alt right politics (often equated with white supremacy), scary fluctuations in the climate, and the ongoing disclosure of unacceptable sexual aggressiveness within business environments have created what many consider a historic tipping point for humanity. The question is whether we’re going to tip forward toward healing progression or tumble screaming backwards into even more aggravating mayhem. A certain president’s—that would be U.S. POTUS Donald Trump’s––decision to re-tweet inflammatory anti-Muslim videos and repeatedly bate unstable dictators has not been particularly comforting. Various transgressions stirring furious indignation are not new. Does this mean they must remain unceasing? The level of expanded public outrage prompting corrective responses to perceived, and often confirmed, injustices represents a powerful shift in humankind’s shared awareness of its potential plight. And that in itself is reason to keep hope alive and kicking. A Bridge of Silver Wings Reconsidered Of all the issues worth pausing my writing and art projects long enough to join fellow citizens in public protests and advocacy, the one which actually prompted me to do so was the historic Renaming the Talmadge Bridge Symposium sponsored by the social justice advocacy group Span the Gap and the Beach Institute of Savannah, Georgia. Originally, I was slated to join participating panelists on stage at the Savannah Theatre along with the moderator, former Mayor Otis S. Johnson. Health issues, however, forced me to limit my participation to taking a front-row seat in the audience and accepting Span the Gap’s gracious acknowledgment of my contributions to the ongoing campaign. The panelist who did go on stage included: civil rights attorney, pastor, and educator Francys Johnson, president of Georgia state NAACP; community organizer Bernetta B. Lanier; Connect Savannah’s community editor Jessica Leigh Lebos; former Chatham County commissioner John McMasters; Savannah Morning News columnist Dr. Mark Murphy; community activist Pamela Oglesby; and chairman of SCAD’s Architectural History Department Robin Williams.  My participation in discussing the need to change the name of the bridge from that of someone who openly championed white supremacy to one less racially antagonistic was less robust than I had preferred but I took some consolation in knowing I had helped create this momentous event through the publication of various essays and articles prior to it taking place. Among them:
The Renaming the Talmadge Bridge symposium did not end with any kind of firm commitment to immediately change the name of the causeway. The event did help raise public awareness of what’s at stake if it remains unchanged. It also inspired me to begin work on a play about the dynamics of inter-generational legacies and embracing the battle to correct social injustices. Vigorous Applications of Compassion The practice of compassion sat either at or near the top of the list of most crucial life-affirming values to which I re-committed myself in 2017. Working with partners at Charter for Compassion, I strove to drive home the point that a vigorous application of compassion in daily personal or professional encounters, the composition of government policies, and religious considerations could go a long way toward solving many of our most egregious dilemmas. The following is a list of blog essays in which I attempted to present my case for advantages of applying a philosophy of universal compassion to everything from global warming and violent conflicts (domestic as well as international) to creative maladjustment, poem-making, and the agony of historic cultural shifts.
So: why all these diverse explorations of the application of the golden rule? Because there’s a lot more wisdom in doing unto others as we would have them do unto us than most people take time to consider. NEXT: Chaos of 2017 sets stage for growth and greater unity in 2018 (part 2 of 2) By Aberjhani About AberjhaniOn any given day of the week, the creator of Postered Chromatic Poetics and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Aberjhani, may be found wearing any number of hats: historian, visual artist, poet, advocate for compassion, novelist, journalist, photographer, and editor. Having recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) he is currently writing a full-length play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge. Not quite 2 years ago (February 12, 2016) I wrote the following regarding the publication of a new edition of my novel, Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World, now titled Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Player, on the publication streaming site known as #FreedReads: ‘Freed Reads hopes to help combat those problems [associated with illiteracy] by doing for reading what #YouTube and #Netflix have done for viewing. But is such a thing possible? Can books be streamed in a manner that proves satisfactory to #stakeholders at every level? Freed Reads’ founders decided that the idea is worth investing sufficient time, labor, and pioneering technology to find out…” (from Christmas Gets a Valentine’s Day Weekend Reboot) I also felt the innovation was worth taking time to investigate its possibilities. For me, that meant taking a leap of faith and placing Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player in the Australia-based publisher’s hands. Bad News, Good News, and More Good NewsWith the stiff competition that seasoned organizations like Amazon and various retail chain giants always present to newcomers, the venture at first gained some respectable ground. Recently, however, owners decided the operation in its current form would not be able to survive and the website hosting it is now offline. The good news is that although Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player is no longer available as a “Freed Read,” the original Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World underground classic edition can still be purchased in both copy and digital formats at the following links:
The other upside to recent developments is that the Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Player edition is now available for a traditional publisher to consider its publication and distribution. About AberjhaniOn any given day of the week, the creator of Postered Chromatic Poetics and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Aberjhani, may be found wearing any number of hats: historian, visual artist, poet, advocate for compassion, novelist, journalist, photographer, and editor. Having recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) he is currently working on a play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.  Two icons of the African American Civil and Human Rights struggle: Dick Gregory (left) and Muhammad Ali. (photo credit attributed to Reuters File) In his lifetime, Dick Gregory (1932-2017) achieved the distinction of becoming a celebrated athlete, conscientious comic, civil rights leader, devoted (in his own singular way) family man, philanthropist, American icon, and author of more than a dozen books.Publisher Harper Collins released his most recent title, Defining Moments in Black History, Reading Between the Lies, on September 5, 2017. The event was a highly-significant one for a 21st-century America in which racial conflicts continue to fuel social and political division. It also represented the extension of a major literary legacy begun at the height of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. ‘For Black Folks and White Folks’Gregory possessed an uncanny ability to transform the soul-crushing anguish of racism and poverty into healing inspiration. As rare as such a gift can be, it is on full display in his first triumphant publishing venture: the classic autobiography titled Nigger, (written with Robert Lipsyte). My used paperback edition of the book was published in 1964 and has a cover price of $1.94. On its now-famous front is a beautiful black and white photograph of Gregory beside a red starburst with bold white text announcing in all caps: OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD. The copy in my possession has been so thoroughly read and re-read by different people that the cover has started coming off and had to be reinforced with cellophane tape. As impressive as the book’s 1 million-plus sales figures are, equally noteworthy is an observation shared by Gregory in its pages about the history and future of the struggle to which he would dedicate so much of his life: “It started long before I came into it, and I may die before it’s over, but we’ll bust this thing and cut out this cancer. America will be as strong and beautiful as it should be, for black folks and white folks” (p. 209). Few in 1964 would have imagined those words retaining the relevance which they have for more than half a century. Yet the #TakeAKnee and Black Lives Matter movements, both of which owe some ideological debt to the icon’s legacy, indicate they have never been more applicable. In addition, Mr. Gregory has indeed passed on while the struggle has not halted but intensified in ways unpredictable before the advent of social media. On August 20, the day before the great eclipse of 2017, I learned that Gregory had died on the 19th at the age of 84. Prior to learning about his death, my plan for the day had been to spend some time constructing an outline for an article or an op-ed in response to suggestions the Confederate Monument in Savannah’s (Georgia, USA) Forsyth Park should be removed. But news of the great satirist’s demise prompted me once again to pick up his brilliant autobiography. ‘More Hope in Laughing’In his own way, Richard Claxton Gregory, who was born on Columbus Day, was as politically dynamic as Malcolm X, as spiritually motivational as Martin Luther King Jr., and as socially revolutionary as Nelson Mandela. Yet his talent for coaxing laughter out of the most brutally inhumane situations set him apart as an astonishingly unique and painfully necessary individual. He said his genius for employing comedy in the face of humor-less oppression derived from a lesson taught by Lucille Gregory (1909-1953) his mother, whom he saw cruelly beaten by Presley Gregory (b.?-1964) his father: “She taught us that man has two ways out in life—laughing or crying. There’s more hope in laughing” (p. 25). In regard to the highly-controversial word chosen for the title of his autobiography, he examined it from many different angles and concluded it said more about people who used it to express hatred that it did about people who were targets of its use. He himself employed it in different situations, such as in 1963 during a protest demonstration in Greenwood, Mississippi, when threatened by a white policeman: “Nigger, you want to go to jail?” (p. 172). By that time, when he was 30 years old, Gregory had already become one of the most successful comedians in America and responded to the policeman as follows:
 Cover of Dick Gregory's classic autobiography "Nigger" (E.P Dutton Publisher,1964). His words represented more than just a furious retort. Gregory felt a deep compassion for humanity as a whole; one of his early mentors was the white Southern Illinois University track and field coach Leland “Doc” Lingle. Like many of the great civil rights activists of his time and now, he believed racism was at least as injurious to those who practiced it as it was to those dis-empowered by it. In the universe as the comically-inclined author saw it, whether certain words cause an individual’s soul to bleed or help it to heal depends on the emotional intent expressed behind its use. Hatred can turn a beautiful poem into a curse. Love can transform an expletive into a benediction. Therefore, the same word which word which sustained an intense encounter between him and a policeman could make others smile: such as when reading this dedication to his mother: “Dear Momma––Wherever you are, if you ever hear the word ‘nigger’ again, remember they are advertising my book.” Maintaining that fine-line balance between humor and rage never became easy. In light of the author’s commitment to eradicating social injustice, however, the ability to do so remained critical. NEXT: Text and Meaning in Dick Gregory’s ‘Nigger’ part 2: Unyielding Commitment About AberjhaniOn any given day of the week, the creator of Postered Chromatic Poetics and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Aberjhani, may be found wearing any number of hats: historian, visual artist, poet, advocate for compassion, novelist, journalist, photographer, and editor. Having recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) he is currently working on a play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge. |
AberjhaniContemporary award-winning author of classically-styled works in history, poetry, creative nonfiction, speculative fiction, and journalism. 
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