Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 2: The Pattern of Dynamics

5/1/2021

(“Falling in Love with Freedom All Over Again” artwork by Aberjhani ©)

INTRO: This installment of Celebrating the PEN Centennial was first published in May 2012. What it addresses in regard to writers’ relationships with language as well as such issues as immigration and genocide are as irrefutably relevant now as then. Possibly even more so. To read part 1 of this series please click here. Part 2 begins now:

Intoxicaing Melodies

Whether language is shyly uttered, fiercely written, or fearfully thought, it creates an inherent rhythm which invites the soul to dance to such intoxicating melodies as truth, anger, inspiration, fear, and love.

Human beings most often accept that invitation to dance in many different ways. Sometimes we do so by following the lead of an initial small or large realization until it whirls voluptuously into an unyielding idea that persuades us to take a certain action or cautions us against another.

Sometimes other pronouncements, spoken or un-, follow the first. But in languages of different kinds. They spring back and forth between diverse grammars and revelations of universal symbols or archetypes, as strangely enthralling formulations and poetic constructions creating what many might recognize as: a song of some kind.

The music is not always beautiful and the dance it inspires may appear more macabre than graceful. As much as we might prefer to choreograph our lives to hip-hop ballads of genuine democracy, various populations throughout the world community endure their existence instead to the soundtrack of something closer to a nonfiction nightmare dystopia.

Ours is an age in which thousands are driven daily from their homelands by the unforgiving brutalities of war, terrorism, political oppression, starvation, disease, economic piracy, and the relentless suffocation of that singular breath which makes human beings individuals. In the United States, Latinos once secure in their identities as Americans discover they are in fact something referred to as “illegal aliens.” They then have to make their way south across the Mexican border and reestablish their lives to the tune of conditions and customs which previously had been little more than the subject of tales shared by grandparents and other interesting relatives.

Leaving Somalia, refugees struggle to reach neighboring countries like Kenya and Ethiopia or, increasingly, to cross the Atlantic to the United States to escape rape, mutilation, and genocide. People indigenously at home in rain forests and other native locales find themselves driven out by the encroaching demands of commercialism [and climate change].

In each of these scenarios human beings have to adapt to choices made by someone other than themselves and dance frantically, as it were, to a beat not their own. The forced nature of these cultural migrations burden language with a vocabulary of tears steeped in grief and desperation. And they challenge writers to retrieve out of these everyday tragedies any beauty worth singing–– without glamorizing the horrors involved or betraying the lives so despicably at risk.

The Pattern of Dynamics

An author accepting language’s invitation to dance steps onto the floor of his or her sensibility-charged consciousness and begins to move instinctively––even if with much dread––in ways which synchronize images, ideas, emotions, sounds, smells, ignorance, and knowledge. Subtle energies crackle insistently along intersecting horizontal and vertical lines to occupy each other repeatedly and compose a vision which at some point may be called a story, a poem, an essay, or a play.

The pattern of dynamics might alter where different authors are concerned but the nature of this paradigm dancing remains essentially the same. Such is the culture, if you will, of the dance shared between vernacular and writers that others––passionate readers, curious friends, fellow authors, tribes on the run––are always encouraged to join them. Many, in fact, will say the dance is not a true one until they do.

MORE COMING SOON!

Aberjhani
Author of The River of Winged Dreams
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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Conversations with the World 106: Reconciling Race & Justice in America

4/27/2021

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"A Crown & Castle for George Perry Floyd Jr. No. 1" art by Aberjhani C2020)

EDITORIAL NOTE: Previous installments of the Conversations with the World Series have featured different translations of popular quotations from my books. This one includes two which many have employed over the past few years in protests against social and racial inequality.

The emerging consensus regarding former policeman Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Perry Floyd Jr. appears to be calling not for reduced, but increased advocacy targeting social and police reform in America. President Joe Biden and Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with numerous others, voiced this repeatedly after Chauvin’s three-weeks-long trial ended April 20, 2021 (just over one month shy of a year after George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020). Members of Mr. Floyd’s family have suggested the same.

What their calls could mean in Savannah, Georgia, is redoubled efforts to protect voting rights in light of the recent passage of the so-called Election Integrity Act of 2021, even as Governor Brian Kemp urges other state leaders to follow suit. Or it could manifest as yet another push to remove the name of white supremacist Eugene Talmadge from the Savannah River Bridge by staging demonstrations on, and marches across, the bridge until that simple but very consequential action is taken. On the national level, such advocacy increases chances of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 will become an actual law.

Believing What You See

In their closing arguments for Mr. Chauvin’s trial, prosecutors encouraged jury members to believe what they had seen in multiple videos showing the former officer’s knee bearing down on Mr. Floyd’s neck until the latter died. It would not have surprised me if, while deliberating Chauvin’s guilt or innocence, jurists discovered they were not able to believe what they saw. It had taken me, after different videos first began surfacing in late May 2020, more than a week to believe what I was seeing.

"Fusion of Faith & Resilence" art by Aberjhani with quote from the book Journey through the Power of the Rainbow.

My first instinct was to call them deep-fake videos produced by people looking for their shot at social media stardom. Maybe this White man in a police uniform was only pretending to pose like some infamous hunter over subdued game while staring, with a toxic mixture of arrogance and defiance, at cameras recording the insanity. Maybe that other gentle giant of a Black man, who probably could have snapped Chauvin in two had he not consciously chosen to respect his authority as an officer of the law, and who cried out repeatedly to someone whose love he did not doubt, was not really gone after all. Except that he really was.

Global Support for African Americans

Strangely, what broke my frozen-in-time disbelief was another set of images which flashed across the globe over the weeks that followed. Protesters in Pretoria, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Berlin, and many more international cities took to streets, plazas, and fields to register their rejection of the hatred documented so thoroughly and horrifically. Their actions, however, also demonstrated something else which many may not have considered.

In different capacities internationally, African Americans have become known to the world as something very different from what Chauvin chose to dismiss with such heinous disregard. And certainly different from what a bridge named after former Governor Talmadge would have visitors to Savannah believe. Globally, various Black performance artists, athletes, members of the military, business partners, and spiritual consultants have become highly-valued members of an extended family. This value was something the policeman could not imagine. As prosecuting attorney Jerry Blackwell stated repeatedly during opening and closing statements of the trial, “He didn’t get up, and he didn’t let up.”

Questions & Possible Answers

It is worth questioning why Chauvin felt so comfortable murdering someone suspected of having passed on a counterfeit $20 bill and why his subsequent conviction was not a foregone conclusion. The same question bears contemplation when examining circumstances surrounding the deaths of: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, 13-year-old Adam Toledo, 20-year-old Daunte Wright, and 42-year-old Andrew Brown Jr. Not a comprehensive list by any means but only of names which come most readily to mind at this moment. Questions regarding them have also hounded me my entire life in regard to the 1963 death of my adolescent brother Robert Lee, shot in the back and killed by police here in Savannah.

The answers have to do with the casual manner in which too many Americans, until now (possibly), have chosen either actively or passively to sustain a culture which encourages the advancement of one demographic based on the detriment of another. The short name for this is well known: systemic racism. Because it truly is SYSTEMIC, ironically, any number of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans have been conditioned to perpetuate its devastating consequences in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew he was not going to see the end of racism in his lifetime just as Barack H. Obama knew his election to the U.S. presidency would not accomplish that extraordinary feat. The current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledges the same. Nonetheless, the conviction of Derek Chauvin has, perhaps like no other single court ruling in U.S. history, confirmed that it can be done.

The successful movement to see justice delivered on behalf of George Floyd’s family was accomplished by engaged citizenry applying sustained advocacy at every social level where diverse people happened to find themselves. As impossible as it may seem to end racism at this current history-making moment, perhaps the best way to honor Mr. Floyd’s amazing contribution to the effort is to do all we can anyway to make sure it does end at some point. Otherwise, what good does it do to celebrate such things as a small helicopter called Ingenuity lifting itself for a few moments off the surface of Mars 181.55 million miles away? In what way would it make sense to continue boasting about advancements in artificial intelligence if we refuse to commit our innate human intelligence to healing the world of the life-destroying disease that is racism?

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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Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

11/1/2020

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A shortage of compelling topics to address via books, blog essays, podcasts, fine art, photography, electronic gaming, and other creative media has not been among the traumatizing events unleashed upon humanity in the year 2020. Painful history-altering occurrences have, however, included the following: a very stubborn and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, further evidence of climate change in the form of murderous fires in California, riots in cities across America in response to #2ManyLivesGone2Soon, and political unease in the face of an uncertain future.

Detail from artwork titled "Blue Rose of Remembrance for Black Lives Gone Too Soon" by Aberjhani.

Incorporating reports on important public happenings into ongoing projects has long been among the better practices at Bright Skylark Literary Productions. It goes back at least as far to the days of my former AXS National African-American Cultural Arts column when I created art graphics for my news stories. Articles sometimes included original poetry to enhance editorial impact. Where the year 2020 is concerned, the following steps have been taken:

To help combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bright Skylark added face masks to the line of products offered through its Fine Art America storefront.
To help correct social injustices generated by systemic racism and other forms of oppression, the book Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind underwent a timely revision and launched officially in September. Artwork supporting the same goal was posted on Fine Art America.
The Conversations with the World Blog Series launched to encourage dialogues on unifying as well polarizing topics to help bridge the gap between the two.
A previously dormant Facebook author account was reactivated to increase engagement with people concerned about deteriorating social conditions and help identify ways to improve the same.
Works of art presented as tributes to victims of COVID-19 and diverse frontline essential workers were made available at Fine Art America.

Although taking the above steps did not erase the different social, political, and environmental ills currently dogging the world, I like to think they contributed to the process of helping move things in a better healthier direction.

Aberjhani

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More Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor: Conversations with the World 104

9/28/2020

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This installment of Conversations with the World takes a new approach to the series by switching from well-known quotes to an additional excerpt from my “Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor” lecture. The text will be followed by links to different articles and essays currently examining O’Connor’s depiction of race in her work and how racial bias possibly influenced her personal behavior or attitudes towards African Americans:

“My goal is not to offend but to encourage consideration. Anyone even slightly familiar with Flannery O'Connor’s work knows she was not a woman to bite her tongue. And I’m not talking just about the words she placed in her characters’ mouths. So I'm pretty sure that just like she did not bite her tongue in service to her vision, she would have preferred that, on this particular occasion, I not bite mine. In fact I’m not just pretty sure. I’m absolutely certain because of reasons which will become clearer when I read a couple of passages from Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind.

“This book about the literary cultures and histories we choose to sustain––and the ones which we either aggressively erase, or passively let vanish. In my examination of these ideas, I present three memoir narratives. The first is called ‘Days of Midnight Madness.’ It deals with some fun and not-so-fun times as a bookstore manager hosting book signings with John Berendt and Lady Chablis. The second narrative, titled ‘On Genius and Exile,’ focuses on writer James Alan McPherson’s relationship with his hometown. And the third narrative is the one I will be discussing and reading from today.

“When you read her letters and notice how strongly she defended her ideas, it becomes apparent that having Lupus did not stop her from being a fighter. That’s another way of saying she was a fierce communicator who tackled some very complex issues in ways women were not expected to deal with such topics in the 1950s and 1960s. We’re talking about such things as: the terror of one war after another, racial tensions in America and around the world, the impact of the industrial revolution on American values, the dynamics of intergenerational relationships, the evolving role of women in American society, and spiritual conflicts in a world, seemingly, more devoted to material and intellectual concerns. Those were huge issues which O’Connor tackled in bold innovative ways.”
--(Excerpt from 2020 lecture by Aberjhani canceled by COVID-19)

Greeting Flannery O’Connor is now available at a variety of online booksellers, including: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Books-A-Million. While it does share certain points of discussion with the noted in-progress conversations regarding O’Connor, it also reaches beyond those specific concerns. To learn more about one of the most significant discussions in contemporary letters of a major American author, please check out the following:

Weighing in on an Important Discussion

Aberjhani
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

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Launch Schedule for Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

8/30/2020

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Detail "Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind" poster art featuring quote from poem "History and Prophets' Prerogatives." Artwork by Aberjhani now available on Fine Art America and Pixels.com.

Working around the different restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic set back the publication of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind in more ways than I could have anticipated by almost 6 months. Let’s face, production under these circumstances is a big issue for everybody. The intense events and mounting urgencies of #TheYear2020, however, reemphasized repeatedly the need to keep pushing forward and get the job done. So with the help of a few friends I have done exactly that and am pleased to announce the date of the planned global launch for the title is Labor Day September 7.

Some of you know already that a soft launch recently kicked off with 3 events: 1) the Greeting Flannery (GF) book info page published at Bright Skylark Literary Productions; 2) corresponding artwork posted for sale at Fine Art America and Pixels.com; and 3) fun-type trivia and quiz questions posted on Goodreads.
Here’s the current extended schedule of planned launch events:

Schedule of Events

SEPTEMBER 1 - 30: GF artwork available at 35 percent off using PROMO Code GFGJZH at Fine Art America and Pixels.com. Prints so far include “Converging Grace” with and without quotation text; and, a mixed media visual incorporating the cover of the book into a collage composed of different symbolic pieces. Please Note: THE IMAGE SEEN WITH THIS POST IS A DETAIL FROM “CONVERGING GRACE” WITH QUOTATION TEXT (the quote being from the book and by me).

SEPT 1: Multi-language “Conversations with the World” series kicks off with focus on posters featuring in different languages quotes from my writings which have become, or which are becoming, parts of international dialogues on our human condition.

SEPT 1: New GF artwork posting on noted websites plus pages here on FB and at Bright Skylark.

Sept 4: Quote from GF posts at Goodreads.

SEPT 7: Selected excerpt from GF posts at Bright Skylark #Literary Prods Website.
SEPT 10-11: “Conversations with the World” series continues.

SEPT 15: “Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor” excerpt from COVID19-canceled lecture posted.

SEPT 16: Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind (ISBN 1-716-68481-1) book launches globally and becomes available online via diverse booksellers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

SEPT 22: New GF #artwork unveiled on Fine Art America and on Pixels.com

SEPT 22: “Conversations with the World” series continues.

SEPT 29: Selected excerpt from GF posts at Bright Skylark Literary Productions Website.

SEPT 29: “Conversations with the World” series continues.

SEPT 29: More “Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor” excerpt from COVID19-canceled lecture posted.

Like all calendars of events for launching major new works, this one is subject to change with additions or deletions but this is where we stand right now.
Thank you for checking it out.

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist, Historian

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Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 2: The Pattern of Dynamics

Intoxicaing Melodies

The Pattern of Dynamics

Aberjhani
Author of The River of Winged Dreams
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Conversations with the World 106: Reconciling Race & Justice in America

Believing What You See

Global Support for African Americans

Questions & Possible Answers

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

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

Aberjhani

Contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions

More Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor: Conversations with the World 104

Weighing in on an Important Discussion

Aberjhani
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

Contact Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Launch Schedule for Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Schedule of Events

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist, Historian

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Celebrating the PEN Centennial Part 2: The Pattern of Dynamics

Intoxicaing Melodies

The Pattern of Dynamics

AberjhaniAuthor of The River of Winged Dreamsand Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Conversations with the World 106: Reconciling Race & Justice in America

Believing What You See

Global Support for African Americans

Questions & Possible Answers

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

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

Aberjhani

Contact Bright Skylark Literary Productions

More Thoughts Unspoken on Flannery O’Connor: Conversations with the World 104

Weighing in on an Important Discussion

AberjhaniHarlem Renaissance Centennial

Contact Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Launch Schedule for Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Schedule of Events

AberjhaniAuthor, Poet, Artist, Historian

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Aberjhani
Author of The River of Winged Dreams
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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

Aberjhani
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

Aberjhani
Author, Poet, Artist, Historian