Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

2017 Summertime Reflections of a Skylark Singing Diamonds

7/1/2017

Quotation Art on birth , rebirth, and poetry: “Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth.” Text and Self-portrait art by Aberjhani–– (from The River of Winged Dreams) copyright 2017 (Postered Poetics by Aberjhani @ Bright Skylark Literary Productions 2017)

The diamonds referenced in the above title symbolize two concrete objectives as well as the more metaphysically metaphorical interpretations some might glean from it.

The first among the two material objectives is an examination of themes, meanings, and historical events that have provided some degree of context for my life up until this point. These are the subject of my current 4--part blog series on Charter for Compassion titled: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life Infused with Democratic Vistas and Creative Resistance. So far we are up to part 3 and you can check them out by clicking the images in this post.

Part 1: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life Infused with Democratic Vistas and Creative Resistance: Birth and Rebirth

The second objective is a serious consideration of creative projects recently-completed and others just getting underway. Of these, the most immediate is a book of creative nonfiction on cultural arts, history, and race relations within Savannah, Georgia (USA).

This is one of those books which had to be lived before it could be written. And I admit the living was not always easy but I celebrate having come this far to share the tales told in its pages.

Part 2: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life Infused with Democratic Vistas and Creative Resistance: Striving and Thriving

Additional components of the second wave of planned goals include: ongoing development of the Chromatic Poetics art project; and––a big drum-roll here—completion of at least one of the two plays currently sitting on my desk waiting for characters to take the stage.

For those who wonder why or how it is the engine room of my creative output remains so productive, the answer is more simple than complex. When looking at everything going on socially, politically, spiritually, economically, and otherwise-ly in our extraordinary world, it becomes impossible for me not to contribute in some way to the many dialogues that could make a powerful positive difference.

Part 3: Notes on Compassion in the Summer of a Life Infused with Democratic Vistas and Creative Resistance: Systemic Absurdity

Author-Artist

Aberjhani is an American poet, historian, essayist, editor, journalist, social critic, and cautious artist. His many honors include the Choice Academic Title of the Year Award, the Notable Book of the Year Award, Outstanding Journalist Award, and Poet of the Year Award. He is currently completing final edits on a work of creative nonfiction about the cultural arts, race relations, immigration, and human trafficking in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia.

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Intensified Creative Vision Requires Maximized Creative Outlets (part 1 of 2)

5/18/2017

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"Intensified Creative Vision Requires Maximized Creative Outlets (part 1 of 2)" blog and Postered Poetics art graphic by Aberjhani.

Adding the mantel of visual artist to that of wordsmith requires--aside from repeatedly earning such a title--doubling the secondary function of launching projects once they are either completed or close to completion. Some of us are naturals at it and others, like this author-artist, more likely to rely on the kindness of friends and pros.

With the ongoing soft launch of Postered Chromatic Poetics, one of the secondary devices employed has been a blog provided by the kind souls at Fine Art America and the camaraderie offered through the active clubs there. The club aspect is reminiscent of the Creative Thinkers International community once based at the Ning Network and I am often tempted to spend as much time there as here.

The Chromatic Poetics blog at FAA has been used primarily to introduce site visitors to new visual works, which is a good thing. Not so good is the present format restriction on images and links that can be included with it. So to help supplement those efforts, I am sharing below and in the next post the two most recent art entries with informational text and purchase widgets:

Dare to Love Life on National Selfie Day and Always

The Dare to Love Yourself "movement" had nothing to do with National Selfie Day when it began to slowly develop ten years ago. The well-known quote--"Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends."-- as many are now aware, originated with the poem Angel of Healing: for the Living, the Dying, and the Praying.

The poem was first published in the book The Bridge of Silver Wings and later in The River of Winged Dreams. It has become increasingly popular over the past few years as a rallying cry to support suicide prevention and to discourage suicide bombers. The association with National Selfie Day was never intentional but obviously a natural fit which hopefully helps encourage not narcissism, but a positive healthy self-image and a deep appreciation for all life.

The following two art descriptions are for recently-added images that celebrate the potential healing capacity of love in all our lives:

Putting Self-Love in Chromatic Context

Loving yourself isn't just about the photographs we post to our social media profiles to show the world we know how to have fun. It's mostly about recognizing where we fit in the larger scheme of things and how our lives contribute meaning and value to the world. Below is the image is the poem, published in The River of Winged Dreams, from which the dare-to-love-yourself quote is taken. The image itself is the second official Postered Chromatic Poetics artwork to feature it:

Angel of Healing: for the Living, the Dying, and the Praying

1.
As you bury flesh––
honor spirit, savor hope,
cherish memory.

Consider heaven
as a world-weary stranger
asleep in your heart.

Quote words that affirm
all men and women are your
brothers and sisters.

Pull the child away
from feeding at the mule’s tail.
Give the baby food.

2.
Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.
Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate.
Souls reconstructed with faith transform agony into peace.
Wisdom applied internally corrects ignorance lived externally.

3.
Dare to love yourself
as if you were a rainbow
with gold at both ends.

Write a soft poem
to one you called bitch, shit head,
nigger, fag, white trash.

Live certain days dressed
in your lover’s smiling soul
while she, he, wears yours.

Imagine your mind
wings intent on expanding
and watch your joy fly.

(from The River of Winged Dreams)

As Goes Love...

The title of this artwork comes from the poem "The Poet-Angels Who Came to Dinner" published in the book The River of winged Dreams. An earlier alternative version features a different color scheme:

The complete first stanza of the poem from which the quotation was taken reads as follows:

I.
Neither had been invited but both were welcomed.
They spoke through wordless intuition, cool nods of
"Peace-Be-Still," and, "As-Goes-Love-So-Goes-Life."

The design used for this one was chosen because instead of idealizing hopes centered around romantic love, it seeks to evoke the many nuances of all kinds of love: family, spiritual, friendship, joy of living, pursuit of creative goals, etc. It also acknowledges that Love is often as much a struggle to maintain as it is a pleasure to be experienced.

NEXT: Intensified Creative Vision Requires Maximized Creative Outlets Part 2

Author

Aberjhani is an American poet, historian, essayist, editor, journalist, social critic, and cautious artist. His many honors include the Choice Academic Title of the Year Award, the Notable Book of the Year Award, Outstanding Journalist, and Poet of the Year. He is currently completing final edits on a work of creative nonfiction about the cultural arts, race relations, immigration, and human trafficking in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia.

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Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

1/21/2017

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"Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017" Postered Poetics by Aberjhani inspired by original image creations of Barron Claiborne.

Trends in demographic shifts, progressive grass roots movements aimed at correcting blatant social injustices, and social media have had transformative effects that strongly encourage revisiting and reflecting on images of Black men's realities in 2017. The prototypes identified in "The Many Ways of Looking at Black Man" are still important. They have, however, expanded considerably.

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

Both before and during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s through the 1940s gifted African-American actors and performers like Ira Aldridge and Paul Robeson at times left the States to find outlets for their talents where they could work without the hindrances of extreme racism. In 2017, that scenario has reversed as performers of African descent from countries outside the U.S. make their way to Hollywood, Broadway, and central strongholds of hip-hop to reap the financial rewards of professional gains made during Blacks' historic struggles for equality.

When giving interviews about his 2013 Academy-award-winning film, 12 Years a Slave, director Steve McQueen Afro-Britain noted he was able to adapt Solomon Northup’s book for the screen as successfully as he did because of the Transatlantic slave trade common to the history of Black people on different continents in the western hemisphere. That simple acknowledgment underscored an aspect of African American men’s' identity often overlooked: that African Americans are also members of the African Diaspora, or, if you will, African Diasporans. Despite the United Nations-endorsed 2011 International Year of People of African Descent, the profound implications and potential of the McQueen's observation is routinely overlooked.

In addition to McQueen, actors David Oyelowo, Idris Elba, DelRoy Lindo Del, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are only a handful of British actors of African descent whose artistry has been employed to dramatize interpretations of African-American men's lives. Such interpretations have ranged from Elba's portrayal of druglord Russell “Stringer” Bell to Oyelowo's acclaimed performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in the film Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay.

Echo Kellum's recurring role as Curtis Holt, a gay Black man married to a Latino on the hit television show ARROW, reflects an aspect of one population subgroup which many in the larger community still have extreme difficulty accepting. Yet, so far as popular television series go, Jesse L. Martin's role as Joe West in The Flash is no less a challenge to stereotypes and assumptions. As the Black adoptive father of a White son––Barry Allen (a.ka The Flash, a.k.a. actor Grant Gustin) who is involved in a romantic relationship with West's biological daughter Iris (Candice Patton )––his is a comic-book world where race is defined not so much by color as by those who have super powers and those who do not.

The Obama Legacy Effect

In his farewell addess, President Barack Obama quoted the late great novelist Harper Lee in which her character Atticus Finch states the following in To Kill a Mockingbird: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Finch's words may contain the wisdom necessary to help members of an increasingly diverse democracy better support one another as Americans rather than continually battle each other as cultural and political separatists. The president also wisely pointed out the need for African Americans to recognize the value of adopting the following practice:

"...Tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change...." (Barack Obama)

Mr. Obama's commentaries on race and the American identity over the past nearly 10 years have not brought about an end to racial divisiveness or violence in the country. But they have played a major role in helping to decrease the magnitude of assumptions and racial bias that seemingly prompt the dismissal of Black folks' lives. His two-term presidency has allowed Americans and citizens of the global community to experience a black man as a "leader of the free world." That singular comprehensive achievement surpasses any categorical way of looking at African-American men that would have been considered possible in 1997.

If, however, someone did feel inspired to duplicate "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" with fresh 2017 faces, it would be easy enough to do with another seven individuals such as: Chance the Rapper, Colson Whitehead, T.D. Jakes, Semaj Clark, Jay Z, Michael B. Jordan, and Tyler Perry. Their celebrity or non-celebrity status would not really comprise the core issue. The main point would be a definitive demonstration that as catastrophic as violence and oppression have been in our lives, they have not and will not erase the most beautiful and essential truths represented by our stories and realities.

Author

Author-Poet Aberjhani is currently completing a book of nonfiction narratives about race relations, histories of erasure, the cultural arts, and practices of slavery in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, USA.

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The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

11/15/2016

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"The universe said, 'Let me show your soul something beautiful." quote by Aberjhani from ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. (Postered Poets Art Graphics)

The edits on my current book in progress were close to complete when Hurricane Matthew came to town and rearranged my priorities. President-Elect Donald Trump, at the time still a presidential candidate, contributed his fair share of distractions as well but that’s another blog for another time.

Along with its unexpected destructiveness in my hometown, Hurricane Matthew also delivered a few gifts. One of the most important of those gifts for me was the rediscovery of research materials in the form of notebooks from the 1990s long thought lost in the shuffle of previous relocations. The material turned up while storing and salvaging valuable to keep them safe from the hurricane.

The discovery of the notebooks themselves became part of my account––now included in the previously-noted book-in-progress–– of surviving Matthew. One of those notebooks contains an unvarnished story of the birth of ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. Because of the death of Luther E. Vann, my co-creator on the project, earlier this year, the notebook was a startling find.

Discussing the Possibility

Had he lived, Luther would have turned 79 on December 2, 2016, so it seems appropriate that notebooks and early recorded recitals of poems from ELEMENTAL should have started popping up at this time. The excerpt below is taken from notes dated September 11, 1992, more than a year after I first met the painter and sculptor.

At this point, I had been experimenting with writing poems based on his art but this was our first time discussing the possibility of working on a book together. Also during this period, comparing our developing friendship to the meeting between Jalal al-Din Rumi and Shams Tabrizi helped me visualize the possibility of working with an artist who had been practicing his craft much longer than I had been plying mine.

Detail from "For the Love of the Poet" painting by Luther E. Vann featured in Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love.)

Called Luther around 8 tonight to make an appointment for our interview next week. As with the week before, I found myself extremely nervous about calling but then realized I was allowing silliness to impede our mutual progress. When I did call, he greeted me with uninhibited enthusiasm and all of my reservations vanished in the sudden light of his pleasure.

He took the opportunity to thank me for the poem [“For the Love of the Poet” based on painting with same name] I left him and Sandra last week.

“Man,” he said, “that was really beautiful. I don’t know if Sandra told you or not, but the idea we came up with—because your words seem so spontaneous, from a gut level––was to do a book together. If you can do something that spontaneously for all the pictures in the book, that would be just great.”

I repeated my tired line about my genius not matching his.

“I don’t know about that. Like I said, the poem has a strong spontaneousness and it has that same multidimensional quality as the picture.”

“Well, it really is an extension of the portrait because when I saw it, the words started writing themselves. In fact, all of the pictures and sculpture inspired me so strongly that I just started composing poetry right then and there.” [At an exhibition of his work]

Could it be we were really having this conversation? How many times had I sat or walked or worked while imagining the possibility of the very thing we were now discussing. The first time I saw his work, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that I should compose a poetic commentary to match the images. What astonishes me more than anything else is that he seems to view my work the same way. How can that be?

Whereas in the recent past I’ve allowed myself to indulge in comparisons between my meeting Luther and great historical personalities meeting with the same, lately I’ve tried to refrain from doing that. But there seems to be in it some appropriateness independent of my own speculations. Shem Friedlander wrote of my two favorite Sufis that theirs “was a friendship based on the discovery of God through each other at a time when both beings had a lesson to impart to one another.” I think possibly it would have been more accurate to say that an overwhelming affirmation of God is what Shams and Rumi experienced through their friendship…

Luther has made a psychospiritual transition which I have, in a way, only casually reached for, while I as yet possess a sense of focus and drive (a bit weakened thought it may be) which seems to have atrophied within himself (quite understandably so give his spiritual disposition). Ours is, I believe, meant to be a true and good partnership. [end of excerpt]

Concluding and Beginning Anew

This post concludes with Carol Phelan Aebby’s poem, The Young Poet and the Painter, which is a rare kind of homage to my work with Luther written in the bibliographic profile acrostic form originated by Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU. The poet’s voice captures a lot of the mystery and wonder that many artists experience when striving to honor a difficult but ultimately rewarding task.

Aberjhani
© November 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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Remembering Acclaimed Author James Alan McPherson

9/4/2016

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Postered Poetics image of author James Alan McPherson by Aberjhani. From the same hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) McPherson's writings had a powerful impact on many fellow writers.

This coming November 2016 will mark the second anniversary of the dedication of the historical marker for the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia. Moreover, as it now turns out, that dedication also represents one of the city’s more notable acknowledgements of the life, work, and legacy of James Alan McPherson (September 16, 1943 – July 27, 2016). The iron-lettered text for the historical marker concludes as follows:

“…One of only two Carnegie library projects for African Americans in Georgia, this was the home library to James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning short story writer and essayist and Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

The story presented below was previously published in my former AXS Entertainment National African Cultural Arts Column. It is shared here in honor of what later this month would have been Mr. McPherson’s 73rd birthday; and, in recognition not only of the role that one particular library played in his life, but in recognition of the immense value libraries around the world continue to contribute to humanity as a whole.

Savannah community marks 100th anniversary of a legacy of knowledge

Community leaders, patrons of the arts, and enthusiastic readers gathered at the historic Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia, on November 13, 2014, to commemorate with a new historical marker the legacy established by its African-American founders in 1914.

Among those assembled on the lawn beside the majestic front steps of the library, located at 537 East Henry Street, were: Senator Lester G. Jackson (D-Savannah and Chatham County), cultural arts advocate Dessie Baker, librarian Mark Darby, author and composer Ja A. Jahannes, historian Charles Lwanga Hoskins, Library Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Daniel Brantley, Georgia Historical Society Executive Director Todd Groce, founder descendant Ursuline Dickey, Dixon Park Neighborhood representative Helen Washington, Library Foundation Director Lester B. Johnson III, Dixon Park Neighborhood representative Helen Washington, Library Foundation Director Lester B. Johnson III, the library’s current branch manager Adriene Tillman, and many others.

Cultural arts patron Dessie Baker (left) and librarian Mark Darby next to Colored Library Association of Savannah Marker in front of Carnegie Branch Library. (photograph by Aberjhani)

In his remarks on the historical significance of the library, Sen. Jackson noted that one of the reasons his father first moved their family many years ago from Statesboro to Savannah was to gain access to the library. They settled in a house only two blocks away: “He said son, this neighborhood will be an investment in your future. It has a library… Every Saturday morning before I could go out to play, I had to visit this structure…”

Sen. Jackson added the following:

“A hundred years ago, 11 men got together and invested in this community’s future by gathering books. And that’s what this marker here stands for today, an investment those men made in the future of not only young people but everyone. It gave them access to knowledge, it gave them access to history, but most importantly it gave them access to the world… where they could come read books, where they could come collect books, where they could come to understand what was [happening] in the world. And that knowledge is still needed today.”

The men to whom he was referring established themselves in 1906 as the Colored Library Association of Savannah. With a grant from American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the group was able to build the unique facility at a cost of $104,041.78 but drew on its own resources and community support to provide operational funds and actual books. Construction of the facility, which stands as the only recognized example of Prairie Style architecture (generally associated with Frank Lloyd Wright) in Savannah, got underway in early 1914. Dedication observances were held for it in August of the same year and construction was completed in 1915.

Harlem Renaissance Connections

The date of the library’s construction and opening is particularly significant in light of the Harlem Renaissance that would get underway just as World War I drew to a close. Placed in that context, members of the Colored Library Association of Savannah may be rightly viewed as southern counterparts to such historians and bibliophiles as “the father of black history” Carter G. Woodson and scholar Arthur Schomburg. Like New York’s famed Schomburg Center for Black Culture, the Carnegie Branch Library is an exceptional repository of works related to African-American history and culture on local, state, and national levels.

In more recent times, structural damage forced the library to close in 1997. It reopened in August 2004 with a slate of programs that included a lecture and book signing based on Facts on File’s Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to modern technology resources, the renovated library also featured a new east wing dedicated to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The text of the new historical marker notes the significance of its role in the intellectual development of both Justice Thomas and Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson.

To learn more about the Carnegie Branch Library’s history, it hours or operation, or current programs please call (912) 231-9921 or visit the Live Oaks Public Libraries website.

by Aberjhani
author of The River of Winged Dreams
and Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

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2017 Summertime Reflections of a Skylark Singing Diamonds

Author-Artist

Intensified Creative Vision Requires Maximized Creative Outlets (part 1 of 2)

Dare to Love Life on National Selfie Day and Always

Putting Self-Love in Chromatic Context

As Goes Love...

Author

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

The Obama Legacy Effect

Author

The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

Discussing the Possibility

Concluding and Beginning Anew

Remembering Acclaimed Author James Alan McPherson

Savannah community marks 100th anniversary of a legacy of knowledge

Harlem Renaissance Connections

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

2017 Summertime Reflections of a Skylark Singing Diamonds

Author-Artist

Intensified Creative Vision Requires Maximized Creative Outlets (part 1 of 2)

Dare to Love Life on National Selfie Day and Always

Putting Self-Love in Chromatic Context

As Goes Love...

Author

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 2 of 2)

Signs of Our Changing 2017 Times

The Obama Legacy Effect

Author

The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

Discussing the Possibility

Concluding and Beginning Anew

Remembering Acclaimed Author James Alan McPherson

Savannah community marks 100th anniversary of a legacy of knowledge​​

Harlem Renaissance Connections

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Savannah community marks 100th anniversary of a legacy of knowledge