Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Conversations with the World 107: 20th Anniversary of September 11

9/10/2021

The meaning of the image on the TV screen was clear to me as I watched footage of giant aircraft explode against the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A war had been declared.

Much less clear, just last month in August 2021, was the meaning behind videos of people clinging to (and falling from) a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft flying out of Kabul, Afghanistan, after 20 years of roadside bombings, drone killings, and to-the-death firefights.

From the moment terrorist hijackers convinced themselves their deadly plot was a good, courageous, and even holy undertaking, the possibility of anyone claiming victory in the long inevitable conflict to follow was destroyed. Just like the WTC Twin Towers themselves.

The U.S., a decade later, would be able to claim a retaliatory victory with the killing of Osama bin Laden. We would also be able to claim a humanitarian triumph (to some extent) with renewed international diplomatic support of Afghanistan’s government, advances in education for Afghan girls and business opportunities for women, and improvements in the country’s public infrastructure.

The Taliban, upon the U.S.’s not-so-graceful departure, could say it had outwaited a superpower and like the most innocent of Davids had brought Goliath crashing facedown to the ground. What they cannot, however, refute is the overwhelming evidence of the rejection of their presence in Kabul by an entire generation of Afghans grown accustomed to a way of life vastly different from what the Taliban envisions for them.

There are no winners in these betrayals of human dignity and spiritual integrity. There is toxic sorrow choking on memories of something sweeter and simpler. And there is hope flickering like the smallest of flashlights inside columns of ash and smoke.

From Reflecting to Responding

While I count myself among the world’s most ardent lovers of poetry, I knew once the coma-like numbness caused by the brutal reality of 9/11 wore off, I would need to do a lot more than write poems about it. But poems were a good way to start, and eventually Angel of Remembrance Candles for September 11 2001 became one of the most quoted on the subject. Essays like Reading Rumi After 9/11 would also become important.

Six years after the attacks, I joined online with others across the globe to transform healing reflections into restorative actions by launching the Creative Thinkers International community. The idea behind CTI was fairly simple:

“…Creative Thinkers International was founded as a response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. As such, its purpose has been to ‘inspire creative responses’ to the challenges of social and political diplomacy and to increase cross-cultural interaction spawned by globalization. Its logo was derived from an original image by artist Denise Elliot-Vernon.”

In addition to the music videos, stories, and photography regularly posted by members, the site also featured a United Nations RSS feed and supported such annual U.N.-sponsored observations as:

Human Rights Day
World Poetry Day
International Day to End Racism
International Jazz Day
International Women’s Day
World Day for Cultural Diversity
And in 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent

What We Learned

At its peak, our membership was approaching 1,000 just before the rapidly-changing landscape and increasing costs of maintaining such an internet site forced it to shut down in 2014 and adopt different profiles on social media. More important was what participants discovered before that happened:

We learned to acknowledge each other’s differences without feeling threatened by them, and to appreciate how distinctions based on cultures other than our own sometimes made our lives much richer.

We recognized the value of taking time to understand one another before destroying any and all opportunities to do so.

We allowed ourselves to marvel at the creative gifts which blossomed in the climate of inspiration and empowerment maintained collectively.

The comfort we found in our shared humanity gave us the strength necessary to move forward with intentional life-enhancing purpose.

What do any of the above observations have to do with what happens now in the United States of America? In Afghanistan? In a world where the COVID-19 pandemic has now taken so many lives (4,608,243 worldwide as of this writing) that it has become common to compare the number to lives lost during major wars?

The answer is Everything.

Aberjhani
20th Anniversary of 9/11
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

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Poems Matter: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s ‘If We Must Die’ (part 2)

7/22/2021

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In the current era, a highly-publicized disproportionate threat to African Americans due to unnatural causes––specifically, violence inflicted upon unarmed African-American men and women by armed policemen–– has been acknowledged by the Black Lives Matter Movement, the United Nations, and numerous social justice organizations around the world. A similar threat in 1919 existed in the form of lynching, essentially the practice of murder by hanging, then often castrating, and often burning African-American men.

Barely 10 years old at the time, the NAACP stood as almost the sole voice of protest against the socially-accepted and legally-tolerated practice. The simple reason is because in 1919 Jim Crow laws were exactly that: laws which openly supported an apartheid government and society in America.

Whereas the more overt apartheid legislation has been repealed, in 2015 there was much talk of a “New Jim Crow” [now described as Jim Crow 2.0 in 2021]. That Blacks and Whites have made tremendous advances in securing social and political equality for all Americans is something most reasonable thinkers would not deny. The conditions as they existed in 1919 were the kinds that challenge poets of any race to prove the significance of their craft. In the case of Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay (1889 –1948) they prompted him to pen the classic poem “If We Must Die”:

IF WE MUST DIE

If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

--Claude McKay (from Harlem Shadows, Harcourt Brace, 1922)

Poetry has often proven an effective instrument for amplifying the voices of those who believe they have been targeted for unfair social and political discrimination; or, worse, tagged for a campaign of potential genocide. Where McKay’s powerful lines are concerned, the author noted the following in his 1937 autobiography, A Long Way from Home:

“Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one, we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted… It was during those days that the sonnet, ‘If We Must Die,’ exploded out of me…”

Encouraged by the support of friends, editors, and publishers, the Jamaican-born McKay considered “If We Must Die” both a critical and a political triumph. The distinct rhyming scheme and compact 14 lines of the poem make it easily identifiable as a sonnet. Yet it is a very different kind of sonnet from those with which a reader might associate poets such as Countee Cullen, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Rainer Maria Rilke.

Literary Distinction

What sets McKay’s poem apart from other well-known sonnets is its unrepentant call to militant action. By contrast, the sonnets of Cullen or Shakespeare generally focus on philosophical musings or romantic passion. By fusing his lines with unyielding outrage, McKay’s appropriation of the sonnet form became itself a revolutionary act.

Original July 1919 cover of LIBERATOR Magazine in which Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die" was first published. Featured on the cover is art by George Bellows.

After its original publication in the July 1919 edition of the Liberator magazine, “If We Must Die” was published in political advocate Cyril Briggs’ (1888-1966) Crusader magazine, labor leader A. Philip Randolph’s Messenger magazine, and dozens more along with a string of anthologies throughout the “roaring twenties.” In 1922, it became part of the poet’s Harlem Shadows collection, one of the first volumes to signal the growing momentum of the Harlem Renaissance.

The poem exploded through the American psyche at a time when African-American leaders were grappling with the same question with which they are wrestling nearly a century later. They do so as Black boys and men are killed under highly questionable circumstances virtually every week, and imprisoned daily for minor provocations that are more often ignored when the transgressors happen to be White boys and men.

By Aberjhani

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem ‘If We Must Die’ Part 1
Poems Matter: Text and meaning in Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” part 2
Fighting Back: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” part 3
Timelines: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” part 4

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Poetry and the Pain of Elijah McClain’s Unjust Killing

7/6/2020

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Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black poetry collection by Aberjhani .

Geographically, the killing of Ahmaud Arbery was closer than that of Elijah McClain because it occurred only an hour’s drive from where I grew up and where people who mean a great deal to me have family members. But for some reason McClain’s death, although it occurred all of 1,600 miles away in Aurora, Colorado, felt closer. I did not understand why until recalling two poems written more than a decade ago. The memory of both forced me to sit down and wonder how it was something written so far in the past was having such a powerful impact on my life in 2020.

The first composition is a song lyric titled “ELI-JAH” originally published in the first edition of the novel Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player (sung by a character named Ruzahn), and later in the poetry collection titled Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black. It is about a man who refuses to accept reports his brother has been killed so he keeps singing his name, Eli-Jah, to let him know he’s committed to finding him. The complete lyric is too lengthy for the purposes of this post but these are the last 2 verses:

Eli-jah!
My handsome, my twin
I long to see you again.
Is your heart
safe in love?
Did your war
ever end?
There’s a storm
in the mountains.
Here’s a cross
painted blue.
Lots of holes
in my shoes
but I’m still looking
boy for you,
yes I’m looking
brother for you.

Did I tell you
your son
keeps calling me dad?
Anything less
spins his mind
cold and sad.
In his eyes
shine pictures
of a long-ago you.
In my head
this cruel
unspeakable truth:
that we battled
and we cursed
and we spilled
each other’s blood,
we relished
our taste of hell
and strangled
heaven’s love.
People said all the time
we were strange that way.
Gave our smiles
to the moon
and our tears
to the day.
(Aberjhani ©2006)

The second text which surprised me with an unexpected emotional connection to McClain is 2 lines at the end of the poem “Vampire Song: The Last Bloodfeast,” also from Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black. I recalled when writing the lines that they sounded strange and I changed them several times but always switched back because somehow they felt honest. Reading them, now, I’m stunned at how close they come to an image combination frequently associated with Elijah McClain: the violin and kittens, for his compassionate practice of playing for them on his lunch breaks. This is the quote from “Vampire Song”:

“Soft upon my right thigh, an oddly-colored kitten
meowed the melodies of angels playing violins.”

There is a possibility I’m making more of these parallels than I should and some might even argue I am forcing them where there are none. They would have a right to that belief.

Before identifying the subconscious links stirring within me such a strong response to the shooting death of McClain, I considered writing a blog titled Music for a Black Skylark in Mourning to express the lingering grief. So I looked for a music video with the words “Black Skylark” in the title and found two. Either one, I felt, could serve as a worthy tribute to McClain and believe he would have appreciated either. The one with which I’ve chosen to close is from volume 5 of the China Meditation Ethno Music Project and titled “A Black Skylark.”

Aberjhani

Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

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A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 3 of 3): Sweating out a Poem

9/16/2019

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Title art-graphic with Suzanne Jackson, Rachel Reese, and Alonzo Davis on stage at Telfair Museums Jepson Center for the Arts. The screen above them is showing archival images from the Suzanne Jackson Five Decades art exhibit. (photo by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions)

Having refrained for years from attending any kind of party at all, I relaxed my self-imposed tension by mixing in a little work with a lot of fun. In a room next to the kitchen (which itself resembled an art installation) I saw a stack of books and, being the bookaholic I am, could not resist their pull.

Picture my surprise when discovering in the pages of Daniel Widener's Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles (2010), and Kellie Jones's South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s (2017), extensive references to the woman of the hour. Also nearby was a copy of ELEMENTAL and seeing it made me feel like the spirit of our friend Luther had dropped in to support the launch with his blessings.

By the time of the party, I had already learned that as well as being a visual artist, Suzanne was a poet who had studied with the phenomenal Lucille Clifton (1936-2010). At least two volumes featuring poems by her had been published: What I Love: Paintings, Poetry, & a Drawing (1972), and Animals (1978). Her writing had also been included in notable anthologies like the Nikky Finney-edited The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007). Maybe I was hoping to find those among the stacked books as well but, to avoid becoming self-absorbed to a point of rudeness, I forced myself to step away and began taking photographs of Suzanne, different guests, and the lush greenery outside the house.

The symbolic images seen in Suzanne Jackson's 12-foot award-winning canvas "Passages" (1978, above) are described in the FIVE DECADES exhibition catalog as "associated with love, childbirth, and women painted in expressive acrylic layers." It hangs here in front of 1 of 7 display vitrines and next to other compelling works included in the Five Decades retrospective debut at the Telfair Museums Jepson Center for the Arts. (Bright Skylark Literary Productions photograph by Aberjhani ©2019)

I tried to avoid cameras myself, not because I felt shy but because for some unknown reason I had begun to sweat--not daintily "perspire" but ferociously SWEAT, like somebody fully-clothed in a sauna--and my shirt was getting soaked. No one else appeared to be having this problem. Reluctantly, when informed that Suzanne wanted an assistant to take a black-and-white photo of me for potential use in a publication, I consented. Soon afterwards, the sweating became too ridiculous and I couldn't figure out why so I said my good-byes and started walking toward my residence, located at the time on the other side of town.

About halfway there, an energized psychic push-and-pull began stirring in my skull and words started to assemble themselves in flashes and clusters. Phrases such as "painted star-fire" and "unmapped territories" swirled and glowed like special effects in a movie. Is this, I wondered, what all the heat which had started flowing through me at the party and forced me to leave before I was ready was all about? A ball of winged language was preparing to reveal itself in one form or another and left me no choice but to stop walking, grab from my shoulder bag a pen and piece of paper, and write the fragments down.

Cover of Suzanne Jackson Five Decades retrospective catalog. For information on closing tour of the retrospective and book signing with artist Suzanne Jackson click the image. (Cover art courtesy of Telfair Books)

Such experiences were not new to me but the way they sometimes manifested could still come as an unsettling disruption. This was such an instant and every other block I had to stop walking and start scribbling. By the time I got home, I had written a rough draft which looked like it could be the beginnings of a poem. Okay, I thought, I'll just leave it in this folder and go back to it next week sometime.

Except that it refused to wait.

Polychromatic Inked Pages

Over the next few days I kept feeling drawn back to the folder and added to the lines already written in black ink, more lines composed in green, red, and purple ink. Sometimes I wondered: was I writing a poem or painting one?

Eventually, the evolving draft was complete enough to take on the title Syllables Painted on a Suzannian Canvas. It was enough to type up and print a second, then later third and fourth drafts before finally settling on: Suzannian Algorithm Finger-Painted on an Abstract Wall. It fit, I thought, the words which had sweated themselves out, the polychromatic inked pages, and the artist in whose honor the work had been composed.

Table of contents from Suzanne Jackson Five Decades retrospective art exhibition catalog. In addition to artist Jackson and editor Rachel Reese, catalog contributors include: Betye Saar, Aberjhani, Melanee C. Harvey, julia elizabeth neal, & Tiffany E. Barber. (Page image courtesy of Telfair Books)

My hope to come up with an idea for an essay or poem for the planned catalog in a couple of months appeared instead to have become an accomplished mission in a few weeks. It seemed the poem, which in time would be accepted for the pages of the catalog, had started writing itself the moment I read the words HATE HAS NO HOME HERE on the sign in Suzanne's window. Or it may have started long before then, upon that first meeting during my 2004 Harlem Renaissance lecture and book signing at the Carnegie Branch Library.

Contemplating how the poem had unveiled itself, I considered it a direct response to the dynamic creative presences gathered that day in Suzanne's home, and to my observances of the current Harlem Renaissance Centennial. This was appropriate enough given the way Harlem Renaissance artists, musicians, writers, educators, and leaders often inspired and empowered each other's creative efforts and political agendas.

Countering Toxic Bigotries & Heinous Practices

The unprecedented advancements of the Harlem Renaissance on multiple cultural fronts helped counter the toxic bigotries and heinous practices of a time when many Americans, if not most, were still entrenched in unyielding mindsets forged during the death-throes of slavery as it was practiced in the 19th century. They remained so even as social, legislative, and technological progressions in the 20th century indicated those who insisted on holding onto delusions of white supremacy were doomed to agonizing personal and collective implosions.

Our present 21st-century hour bears a lot of similarities to the previous time-frame. Works by black artists supportive of progressive change mattered then as they do now because often found within them were/are important ingredients for remedies to what ails our bleeding and burning world the most. Ingredients like symbols of life-sustaining values and language encouraging actions motivated by compassion and mindfulness.

The recognition and celebration of Suzanne Jackson's achievements in this modern era when chaos and enmity command so much attention on a daily basis is a recognition and celebration of some of our better options for moving toward the next century. Her painted, poemized, and otherwise choreographed meditations offer us touchstones of remembrance and awareness. Those touchstones inspire individuals and communities to consider more deeply and more efficiently the choices which have brought humanity to this 2019 moment of quivering uncertainties, and, the options most likely to help us regain the advantages of higher ground and hopes now seemingly lost.

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

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A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

9/9/2019

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Title-art graphic featuring artist Suzanne Jackson in conversation on stage at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts. (Art graphic by Aberjhani)

Anyone on June 27, 2019, attending the opening of the Suzanne Jackson Five Decades retrospective at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia (USA), or involved in its production prior to that historic evening, could tell something exceptional was happening. In addition to the mesmerizing kind of vibrant textiles and stunning canvases one might expect to discover at such an opening for a contemporary artist, there were seven vitrines (display cases) filled with family photographs, vintage 1960s flyers advertising a "Revolutionary Art Exhibit," sketchbooks, program notes, letters, photographs, and other revealing archival materials from different chapters of Jackson's, and America's, life stories.

The items made available went beyond career highlights to illuminating an artist's considerable immersion in a significant historical moment: the 1960s-1970s Black Arts Movement as it rooted and flowered in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. For those observers of African-American history who contend America's West Coast contributed much less to the Harlem Renaissance than other regions because it lacked, during the 1920s-1940s, a heavy representation of the traditions and institutions then associated with Black culture in the South, the 1960s may be considered the bridge which connected history and geography.

Ideas of how and why that might be the case, within the context of Five Decades, first struck me as apparent while listening to the on-stage conversation between Jackson, fellow artist Alonzo Davis, and Telfair Museums curator Rachel Reese. Jackson's and Davis's stories of establishing art galleries in downtown Los Angeles, building a sustainable cultural arts community, and balancing commitments to careers and political struggle with commitments to family life were not completely unlike what we find in the life stories of East Coast predecessors like Lois Mailou Jones and Augusta Fells Savage.

This observation does not contradict the contexts of ecowomanism and black feminist ethics contexts in which the brilliant essays by Reese, julia elizabeth neal, Melanee C. Harvey, and Tiffany E. Barber place Jackson's work in the forthcoming Five Decades catalog. It simply acknowledges one more powerful aspect of the place she now occupies as an influential contemporary artist of historical importance. In her foreword to the catalog, artist Betye Saar alludes to the significance of Jackson's role as someone whose art and advocacy have bridged gaps:

"In the 1960s, black artists in Los Angeles were struggling to be recognized. Some public venues had integrated exhibitions, but generally speaking black artists were ignored... Suzanne made a concrete imprint when she opened Gallery 32 on Lafayette Park Place..." (Appropriately enough, work by the 93-year-old Saar herself is currently undergoing a kind of revival with forthcoming solo shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.)

After Jackson's, Davis's, and Reese's dynamic conversation, the feeling when walking among the dozens of artworks hung with dazzling appeal in the Steward North and Kane Galleries, absorbing the full impact of the actual exhibit, was like glimpsing a long-hidden priceless American treasure. Those who have yet to treat themselves to the experience still have until October 13, 2019, to do so at the Jepson. Just as importantly, the exhibition catalog is due out September 25 and orders for it are being accepted now.

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Artist Suzanne Jackson (right) speaking with librarian Mark Darby (left) at historic 2004 "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" book signing and lecture presented by Aberjhani (center) at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia (USA). (Photograph Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection)

My journey toward the almost magical evening of June 27 actually began on August 28, 2004, when Ms. Jackson attended my "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" lecture and book signing at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah. Since relocating to the city eight years earlier, she had been surprised to discover the African-American cultural arts scene was as vibrant as it was and included someone who had co-authored (with the late Sandra L. West) the groundbreaking Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

I was surprised and impressed to learn she had lived on the West Coast--just as I had in San Francisco--and now taught at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). If I'd had the slightest prophetic clue of the visual marvels that would be revealed 15 years later, I would have been flat-out amazed.

Mounted wall screen showing video images from life and career of artist and educator Suzanne Jackson. The video was part of the opening for Jackson's Five Decades Retrospective at the Telfair Museums Jepson Center for the Art in Savannah, Georgia, on June 27, 2019. (Bright Skylark Literary Productions photograph by Aberjhani ©2019)

That early meeting was genuinely fortuitous because in those days my responsibilities as a caregiver had already started to limit participation in public events. I nevertheless did make it out occasionally and during the years which followed the lecture our paths crossed enough for an acquaintance to become a friendship. As it turned out, we had more than the cultural arts and California in common. We had both also spent time in Fairbanks, Alaska--she as a child growing up there and me some years later as a U.S. military journalist.

We came to know many of the same creatives and shared enthusiasm over their triumphs. Grief, too, demanded acknowledgement when experiencing the loss of such individuals as painter Allen M. Fireall (1954-2014), his fellow artist and friend Luther E. Vann (1937-2016), and author-educator Ja A. Jahannes (1942-2015). More personal, more blood-connected losses inserted themselves into the stories of our individual lives as well, both stalling and fueling painted poems and poemized visions that would manifest in coming years.

NEXT: A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 2): Jazz, Art, & Partying

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

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Conversations with the World 107: 20th Anniversary of September 11

From Reflecting to Responding

What We Learned

Aberjhani
20th Anniversary of 9/11
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Poems Matter: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s ‘If We Must Die’ (part 2)

Literary Distinction

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Poetry and the Pain of Elijah McClain’s Unjust Killing

Aberjhani

Contact the Author

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 3 of 3): Sweating out a Poem

Polychromatic Inked Pages

Countering Toxic Bigotries & Heinous Practices

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Contact the Author

Aberjhani

Archives

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Conversations with the World 107: 20th Anniversary of September 11

From Reflecting to Responding

​What We Learned

Aberjhani 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Harlem Renaissance Centennial

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Poems Matter: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s ‘If We Must Die’ (part 2)

​Literary Distinction

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Poetry and the Pain of Elijah McClain’s Unjust Killing

Aberjhani

Contact the Author

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 3 of 3): Sweating out a Poem

Polychromatic Inked Pages

Countering Toxic Bigotries & Heinous Practices

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Contact the Author

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

What We Learned

Aberjhani
20th Anniversary of 9/11
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

Literary Distinction