Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Conversations with the World 109: Reading Myself All Year Long

12/29/2021

"Wonders Quietly on the Way" artwork by Aberjhani)

Between public issues impacting all of our lives and individual events involving my cultural arts labors, a lot occurred which different media commentators might have quoted me about in 2021. Take, for example, so far as public matters go, the now historically infamous January 6 Insurrection. Or consider the potential fate of Jalal al-Din Rumi/Balkhi’s hometown following the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan. Other opportunities included statements in support of environmental justice, social justice, and a world free of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

To see pages and publications featuring quotes by Aberjhani in late 2020 and throughout the year 2021, please check out the above slideshow.

The articles, blogs, essays, books, and institutions in question covered a lot of territory. While I focused on making progress on my pandemic book project of original art and texts (featuring guest authors), I was also involved via the quoted word in a wide range of dialogues. The topics dealt with everything from current governmental practices and putting historic events into more informed contexts, to the popularity of cognac in Kenya and the inspiration drawn from rainbows across the planet.

After a quote from Elemental The Power of Illuminated Love was published in the December 2020 issue of Science of Mind magazine, I found it interesting that another from the book was published on page 15 of the August 2021 issue of Franciscan Media’s St. Anthony Messenger. A favorite, I have to admit, was a post on Spiritual Passages used to help celebrate a meeting between Pope Frances and Spiderman.

In addition, publications as fundamentally different as The Jerusalem Post and Pakistan Today have employed texts to emphasize the need for more democratic and compassionate practices within their governments and societies at large.
What all of this means to me as we leave 2021 behind and move forward into 2022 is that our collective yearning for unity and coexistence is stronger than any hunger for war and division. The primary challenge remains how to best accomplish the former in order to avoid mutual destruction by the latter.

Aberjhani
Happy New Year 2022

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Conversations with the World 108: Ben Okri’s Existential Call to Creative Arms

12/1/2021

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In his November 12, 2021, essay for England’s The Guardian newspaper, Booker Prize-winning author Ben Oki urged creative artists around the globe to dedicate their inspired labors to the production of works addressing the catastrophic crises of the current era. In his words:

“I propose existential creativity, to serve the unavoidable truth of our times, and a visionary existentialism, to serve the future that we must bring about from the brink of our environmental catastrophe.”

It just so happens that many creative artists already advocate not only for environmental justice, but also for economic justice, gender equality, and antiracism. That Okri declined in his op-ed/essay to comment on the last in this year when the verdict for the trial of the death of George Floyd made headlines around the world, and the trial for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery was moving toward a similar outcome, is a little baffling. After all, ending death by racism and xenophobia is no less a global crisis than preventing mass destruction from human-induced climate change. Neither, for that matter, is a coronavirus capable of masking itself and attacking our species in different mutated guises: such as Delta and Omicron.

Deatail from "Finding Shelter in a Circle of Gratitude Number 3: Meanwhile Back on Earth" art by Aberjhani. Full wall art print available for purchase on artist's Fine Art America and Pixels profiles as well as here at Bright Skylark.)

Does any of that mean Okri’s call for more mindful considerations of climate change should be ignored? Not at all. But how any given creative chooses to respond to it is up to them. My own compulsion to address climate change is apparent in the article, “The Art of Reversing Climate Change Denial,” in artwork currently on exhibit in the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport Art Gallery, and in the book, Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah.

Taking Notice of Rare Literary Talent

I first became aware of Okri’s commanding literary voice after his novel, The Famished Road, catapulted him to world fame in the 1990s. If I hadn’t been a bookseller at the time, I probably would not have learned about the title. Moreover, I likely would have missed out on the gems which have continued to flow from his pen.

The Famished Road turned out to be one of those rare reads which I never wanted to put down and rushed back to at every opportunity. My review essay on it was published first in the now defunct Georgia Guardian newspaper and, later, in my AXS Entertainment African-American Cultural Arts column. In it, I pointed out something which illustrates well Okri’s current howl of existential angst:

His work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them: To what extent will we allow the indefinable dynamics of something called “destiny” to maintain grief and horror in the world? How hard are human beings willing to fight to achieve and sustain justice, equanimity, or joy? And should progress be called such when it devours what is best within the human spirit? (From essay Ben Okri’s Famished Road Leads to Thrilling Reading Pleasure, by Aberjhani)

When considering the above observation made years ago, it becomes easy to see why much of my recent literary and fine visual art has indeed been mindful responses to the turbulent terrors of this historical moment. With climate change denial literally stoking the flames of mass destruction, xenophobia prompting unjust killings, and armed conflicts increasing instead of decreasing, how could they be otherwise? Small wonder that billionaire’s are investing their cash into space-bound rockets.

Supporting the Process

My brand of existential creativity cannot include the assertion that these days are humanity’s last days. I have to hold my creative endeavors and my mindful intentions accountable for something more than standing on street corners screaming the end is near. That is where the “visionary” aspect of Okri’s battle cry comes into play and where our philosophical approaches align best.

It is, without question, imperative we acknowledge the near-apocalyptic conditions forcing dangerous human migrations all over the world and producing toxic circumstances both physical and psychic in nature. It is equally vital we propose and work to secure alternative outcomes. My way of supporting that process has been, and remains, to help provide language, images, and strategies which enable us to steer our way through the raging chaos. How many before us have had to so the same?

The spark of life itself never goes out completely. The stream of existence adapts to new pathways and new challenges while yet flowing steadily toward a horizon of uncertainty and a dawn of renewed hope. This reflection is not intended to suggest the existential perils before us are insignificant. It is intended to affirm the priceless value of all we stand to lose and which yet might be salvaged.

Aberjhani
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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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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Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem 'If We Must Die' (Part 1)

7/16/2021

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This essay was first published in 2015 to commemorate the 95th anniversary of McKay’s literary milestone and in remembrance of the extraordinary Red Summer of 1919. It is now part of an ongoing series of re-posts intended to encourage reflections on Americans’ collective pursuit of racial equality and inspire actions most likely to help achieve it with dignity and intelligence.

As it stands at this moment: One hundred and two years after the initial publication of Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay’s masterful poem, “If We Must Die,” America finds itself “reckoning” with the consequences of racial inequality allowed to fester for centuries. It doesn’t take a PhD in antiracism to understand how the highly-publicized violent deaths of African Americans over the past 10 years, and the disproportionate number of Black lives lost to COVID-19 from 2020-2021, dramatically mirror the kinds of systemic racism which prompted McKay to pen his classic lines.

Particularly interesting in 2021, however, is how African Americans’ collective refusal to “die” without fighting back in a variety of ways, has motivated populations in different countries around the world to do the same. Ironically, the tensions driving unrest among different populations “of color” on the global front often have more to do with economic inequalities and charges of political corruption than racial factors. Such, apparently, has been the case recently in South Africa, Haiti, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Russia. Nevertheless, the motivation behind their will to “fight back” has often been linked via social media and other channels to the ongoing struggles of African Americans to refine practices of democracy in their homeland.

Idea of Post-Racialism a Dream Deferred

There were many good reasons to believe America had entered––or at least was about to enter––a golden era of post-racialism following the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Among them was the election of the country’s first African-American president itself, an increasingly diverse American population, and a sociopolitical landscape made more democratic (in appearance at least) by the various influences of technological innovation.

Unfortunately, none of those good noble reasons were able to withstand the onslaught of reality as the number of hate groups in the country began to increase almost immediately, even while the Black prison population and Black unemployment rates continued to do the same. In a word, the country was nowhere near “there” yet.

Red Summers of Yesterday and Today

The growing number of cities where protest demonstrations have occurred over the past few years in response to extreme uses of force by policemen against African Americans, and the very oppressive conditions under which many African Americans continue to live, is eerily similar to another riot-filled time in U.S. history. The period which might first come to mind for most people is the 1960s, a decade in which “race riots” flared up every other year in places such as Greensboro, N.C. (1960), Los Angeles (Watts), Calif. (1964), Detroit, Michigan (1967), and Baltimore (1968).

Art detail from "Blackness as Taught by My Father" by Aberjhani. Available for sale at Fine Art America and on Pixels.com)

However, the historical moment which possibly resembles the current [1915-2021] intense state of racial affairs the most is that of the period leading up to the Red Summer of 1919. As pointed out in Facts on File’s Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance:

“Riots throughout the summer of 1919 occurred in 25 U.S. cities, including Omaha, Nebraska; Washington, D.C.; Longview, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Chicago, Illinois; creating the most destructive confrontations between Americans since the Civil War. Nearly a hundred African Americans lost their lives and countless others were injured during this period, which writer and composer James Weldon Johnson described as the Red Summer.” (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance p. 277)

The conditions leading up to that Red Summer were not very different from those many identify as responsible for the racial tensions America continued to experience in 2015 [and later in 2020]. Back in 1919, the country was in the midst of a major demographic shift, now referred to as the Great Migration, following a horrific war. At that time, African Americans had started moving almost en masse out of the rural areas of the South and making their way to urban centers of the North and Midwest.

At present [referring to 2015], the country is again, following two controversial wars, experiencing history-changing demographic evolutions on multiple fronts. This time it is the heavy immigration of Latinos, Asians, and Indian populations into the country. In addition, an aging U.S. population and the simultaneous maturation of the country’s youngest generation are also redefining America’s social and political landscapes. The parallels, however, between 1919 and 2015 do not end there.

By Aberjhani

CHECK OUT THE ENTIRE 4-PART SERIES:
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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Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 3: Change in Action

5/10/2021

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Introduction

This third installment of Bright Skylark Literary Productions’ observation of the PEN International and PEN America Centennial is a condensed version of an article previously published by AXS Entertainment. It addresses the arrest of Ethiopian journalist and publisher Eskinder Nega, the history of PEN’s stance against racism, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

From Journalist to Founder of Political Party

Since the 1990s, Eskinder Nega has been arrested at least a dozen times on charges generally denounced by the world community as false. They have ranged from inciting riots and attempts to overthrow the government to participation in a murder. He and his wife, journalist Serkalem Fasil, were both jailed on charges of treason charges for their writings on government suppression of protests questioning the validity of parliamentary elections.

After his arrest in 2012 for editorials criticizing government policies and supporting the rights of citizens to protest them, PEN joined with Amnesty International and other organizations to advocate on Nega’s behalf. He was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on May 1, 2012. He received the International Press Institute (IPI)’s 69th World Press Freedom Hero award on May 18, 2017.

Nega has modeled his style of advocacy and activism on the example of Nelson Mandela and once said, “Like my hero Nelson Mandela, my soul is unconquered, my spirit unbroken, my head unbowed, and my heart unafraid.” True to Mandela’s model of political activism and persistence, he served nearly seven years at Kaliti Prison in Addis Ababa. In addition, he experienced subsequent arrests and assaults before going on to establish the Balderas for Genuine Democracy Party in January 2020.

Nega once offered the following critique of his government and citizens of Ethiopia: “This being Ethiopia, though, leaders seldom enjoy the privilege of honest advice from subordinates... By the power tradition, leaders are told what they want to hear and not what they should… The rule in this world is simple: Thrive with opportunism and sophistry. Perish with honesty and integrity.” His growing popularity may be an indication he has found a functional balance between the divisive extremes.

The One Constant

As history has demonstrated many times over, change may arrive slowly or quickly but it is the one constant, in one form or another, on which we can all count. A lasting shining example of positive change in action is PEN America itself.

Front cover of book "Mrs SAPPHO The Life of C.A. Dawson Scott 'Mother of International P.E.N." by Marjorie Watts.

In her biography of PEN co-founder Catherine A. Dawson Scott, Marjorie Watts (her daughter) observed that both Dawson Scott and PEN president John Galsworthy had a “dislike” of “racial prejudice.” Yet the PEN American Center in 1943 was all of two decades old when Harlem Renaissance authors Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps exchanged letters about the absence of any African-Americans in the organization. Responding to query from Hughes, Bontemps wrote on September 24, 1943:

“…You are right. No Negroes are members. I know of two attempts. It was rumored in Chicago that Dick (Richard Wright) was suggested for membership in N.Y. shortly after Native Son became a best seller but something came up and the idea was dropped.”

Still, three years later Wright was a guest at PEN centers throughout Europe. Ten years after that, Ralph Ellison, esteemed author of Invisible Man, was invited to join the American Center. And the rest, as “they say,” is now an unparalleled portrait of triumphant diversity.

However, the more important point in 2021 is that because it chose to embrace change for the betterment of all humanity at a time when many opted to resist it, PEN America can now celebrate 100 years as part of the world’s oldest human rights and literary advocacy organization. In other words, someone had to embrace positive beginnings before anyone could celebrate successful conclusions or continuations.

The Challenge of Making Change Work

wo of the most interesting comments regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2012 came from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. himself when he stated: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” And: “…it is not our role to forbid it or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness."

Some commentators have extended interpretations of those statements, plus additional comments, as Chief Justice Roberts’ way of saying his job in this ruling “was to find a way to make the Affordable Care Act work.” How unprecedented and extraordinary is that? (Since the historic ruling, former US President Donald Trump initiated policies aimed at restricting access to the program but current President Joe Biden, upon his election, reversed Trump’s actions and expanded access.)

It is fully possible that the Affordable Care Act (popularly referred to as “Obamacare” after former U.S. President Barack H. Obama) and the movement toward humane applications of immigration laws are the beginnings of a potentially golden age for democracy. It is also possible that Eskinder Nega and the other journalists calling for greater freedom of expression in Ethiopia are heroes whose courage eventually will help elevate even more than concepts of freedom in their homeland. First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.

To read Part 1 of this series please check out: Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 1 The Art of Paradigm Dancing
You can read Part 2 of this series here: Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 2 The Pattern of Dynamics

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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Conversations with the World 109: Reading Myself All Year Long

ENJOY MORE CONVERSATIONS WITH THE WORLD

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Conversations with the World 108: Ben Okri’s Existential Call to Creative Arms

Taking Notice of Rare Literary Talent

Supporting the Process

Contact the Author-Artist 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

Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem 'If We Must Die' (Part 1)

Idea of Post-Racialism a Dream Deferred

Red Summers of Yesterday and Today

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 3: Change in Action

Introduction

From Journalist to Founder of Political Party

The One Constant

The Challenge of Making Change Work

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

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Conversations with the World 109: Reading Myself All Year Long

ENJOY MORE CONVERSATIONS WITH THE WORLD

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Conversations with the World 108: Ben Okri’s Existential Call to Creative Arms

Taking Notice of Rare Literary Talent

Supporting the Process

Contact the Author-Artist 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

Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem 'If We Must Die' (Part 1)

Idea of Post-Racialism a Dream Deferred

​Red Summers of Yesterday and Today

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 3: Change in Action

​Introduction

From Journalist to Founder of Political Party

​The One Constant

The Challenge of Making Change Work

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

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Literary Distinction

Red Summers of Yesterday and Today

Introduction

The One Constant

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