Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

1/17/2017

Photo collage of men featured in original Nov '97 ESSENCE Magazine feature. From top left: Maxwell, Aberjhani, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Michel Marriott, John Edgar Wideman, Tiger Woods, and Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt. (Collage inspired by original photography of Barron Claiborne)

Since the publication of "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" special feature story in ESSENCE Magazine, November 1997, perspectives on men of African descent in the United States of America have evolved to cover a lot of ideological territory. That observation rings as true for everyday citizens of the country as it does for mainstream media, in which we have seen a gamut of extreme images, sometimes horrifying bloody, sometimes wonderfully inspiring.

The atmosphere of combativeness generated when the country's President-Elect, Donald Trump, chose to castigate civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) for exercising his right (some might say duty) to voice concerns over political legitimacy, removed any doubt that a lot of work still needs to be done where race relations are concerned. In light of the increasingly disturbing violent deaths of African-American men, women, and children over the past few years, prompting me to wonder if their names inexplicably would soon join the others, and in light of unconcealed attempts at disenfranchisement, an industrial prison complex that gorges itself on Black men's lives, and other irrefutable factors, "The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man" takes on new and powerful significance in this year marking the 20th anniversary of its publication.

Among other things, it is also, as Black History Month approaches, one more reason to think back with gratitude for the leadership which Susan L. Taylor, now founder/director of National Cares Mentoring Movement, provided as editor-in-chief of the magazine for some 20 years. In the noted classic issue, she reminded readers of this: "Whatever parcels of power we claim today were not surrendered to us willingly or without long and painful struggle. That struggle continues because our oppression continues..."

Nevertheless, the dominant theme for the occasion was more one of celebration than protestation. As such, the following description of the African-American man is from the magazine's contents synopsis and introduction to the original feature:

"From sexual icon to warrior to caretaker--he is our black man. In this annual men's issue, we explore how he handles power, privilege and pain... He is many things to many people: husband and lover, father and son, brother, friend, sex symbol and political nightmare, crossover icon and business mogul..."

Those bright powerful noble words make a poignant contrast to the vivid horror of Black men's and boys' bodies falling in American streets to the repeated blasts of gunfire. That does not mean they are no longer relevant.

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

We know in 2017 that how Black Men are perceived, perceived, or guerrilla decontextualized, is extremely important because of the various circumstances and events that have led to their deaths, or incarceration, in more instances than anyone can accurately count.

Alleged perceptions of unarmed black males as immediate threats to armed policeman's lives (or a would-be policeman in the case of George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin) has resulted in numerous deaths declared "justifiable" under Stand Your Ground laws. Stunningly, Edward Lewis, who in 1997 was publisher of ESSENCE and CEO of Essence Communications, Inc., wrote in the November issue:

"Some victims of police brutality don't live to tell about it. They die from bullets and blows and choke holds that are found--upon review by higher authorities--to fall roughly within acceptable guidelines. Others, who seek redress, often find their paths blocked."

Could not Lewis's words written 20 years ago have been penned just as easily in 2017? Think Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray,Terence Crutcher, Walter L. Scott, Sandra Bland and, sadly, many more.

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

Perceptions of Black men as dead-beat fathers have been reinforced by actual institutional systems designed to keep them at an economic, social, and political disadvantage. Perceptions of Black men as criminals increased with a manufactured war-on-drugs that first created the means for them to become suppliers of illicit substances and then, once they did so, punished them with prison sentences far more severe than equally-guilty White counterparts.

Call it the guerrilla decontextualization of an entire segment of American citizens' character and reality. One dangerous result of these manipulated perceptions and misconceptions of African-American men has been intensified inherited biases which, in turn, appear to have made institutional racism more severe than ever.

Unlike those who foster the above incongruences and paradoxes, Susan L. Taylor and her editorial board chose for their extraordinary annual men's edition to showcase a spectrum of black masculinity that was not based on a stereotype of irredeemable infamy. To accomplish this, they opted to present well-known and not-so-well-known Black men in the feature.

Among the outstanding aspects of the lay-out design was the line of light orange and blue text across the full-page black and white photographs of the subjects. Below are the names of the seven men featured, followed by a few of the words used to describe them, listed in the order that they appeared on pages 87-126:

Singer-Songwriter Maxwell: soft-spoken, playful, sizzling.
Golf Champion Tiger Woods: gifted, sophisticated, wholesome, young, fresh.
Political Advocate Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt: committed, impassioned, single-minded,
Entrepreneur-Entertainer Sean "Puffy Combs: self-confident, bankable, resilient, astute
Author-Poet Aberjhani: considerate, kind, resourceful, artistic, alert.
Writer Michel Marriott: reckless, noble, rueful, keen, masculine, vivid.
Author John Edgar Wideman: brilliant, somber, deliberate, original, intense.

In addition to those represented in the cover story, some of the other articles and profiles shined spotlights on: basketball legend Michael Jordan (actually seen shaving his head in a full-page ad for his cologne), actor-activist Harry Belafonte, actor Michael Beach, NFL footballer Keyshawn Jackson, poet-publisher Haki Madhubuti, intellectual properties manager Phillip Madison Jones, singers Tony Rich, Brian McKnight and Kenny Lattimore, and designer Dion Lattimore.

Addressing the difficulty of being a Black prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case, Christopher Darden avowed in the special edition that grief does not play racial favorites when a loved one is lost to violence. Speaking of the Goldman and the Brown families, he acknowledged, "Their tears were the same color as the tears I have seen so many times before in the eyes of Black survivors of violent crime. I cannot distinguish between the two."

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

Aberjhani
Bright Skylark Literary Productions
January 2017

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For Love of Paris and a More Compassionate World (Part 2)

11/21/2015

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"This fire that we call loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls." Aberjhani (from ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. Poster art by FamilyShare.com)

You can enjoy part 1 of this article by clicking here. Part 2 begins now:

Impressive 21st-century technological advances notwithstanding, we have no reasons at present believe our modern global version of the Tower of Babel is about to crumble and then reconstruct itself any time soon. Terrorists, warlords, and state governments alike would do best to include within their strategic plans sufficient measures of sanity beyond the impulses to attempt to coerce each other into unlikely forms of submission.

Different values and worldviews do not have to mean inevitable violence or conflict. They can mean greater enrichment of each other’s lives. Leadership theorist Max De Pree wrote as truthfully as anyone has when he stated:

“We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion” (Leadership is an Art).

That holds true in modern times whether you propose to be a leader of young malleable individuals eager to become catalysts for positive change or of more established groups dedicated to securing a specific legacy. What matters, above all else, is that everybody matters.

Diversity is an aspect of human existence that cannot be eradicated by terrorism or war or self-consuming hatred. It can only be conquered by recognizing and claiming the wealth of values it represents for all. The situation would be quite different if the violent extremism which has come to characterize anarchistic terrorism and government-sanctioned warfare actually resolved anything. The problem is they do not. Advances are claimed on one front and then annihilation––physical, mental, and spiritual–– witnessed on another. Global poverty, dis-empowering illiteracy, health crises, and human trafficking linger like the ultimate toxic nuclear radiation. The hearts of infants beat their last, blood dries on abandoned corpses, and souls take their leave of now useless broken bones.

Of Love and Bridges

The 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi, whose poetry in Persian has been translated into superb English versions by the 21st-century American poet Coleman Barks, told us that “Love is the bridge between you and everything.” Those are marvelous words to contemplate when struggling to make sense of the avoidable carnage in Paris, Syria, Nigeria, Mali, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Equally marvelous to contemplate is the confluence of sensibilities that has bypassed time, space, and nationality to make Barks’ name virtually synonymous with that of Rumi’s.

Paris in particular is known in part for its many bridges and is legendary as a place that evokes mesmerizing creative expressions of love, in both the greatest of artists and the most ordinary men and women. However, if the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the likelihood that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences common to all human beings. What civilization does not contain within its histories tales of sons, daughters, husbands, and wives who have been lost to conflict, and whose deaths left gaping voids that could be filled with nothing but grief? In what land do people not hope that the coming New Year will bring with it fewer reasons to bow before fear or despair and greater inspiration applied to an empowered sense of hope and dignity? The more healing options do not have to be dragged into a disposal bin designed for unrealistic dreams and desires.

A Messy and Complicated Concept

The four letters that spell out the word “love”––or five (amour) in French, seven (Кохання) in Ukrainian, or six (upendo) in Swahili–– can indeed add up to a messy and complicated concept. Nevertheless, whatever danger it (love, amour, Кохання, upendo) might pose to human existence is far less fatal than strapping bombs next to one’s heart as if they were newly-earned wings. Nor is it more lethally addictive than the apparent rush that comes from investing billions in war machines and prisons instead of committing the same to much-needed medical research and education programs.

These children are eating in poverty-stricken Mali, Africa, where terrorists killed 19 people at a hotel just one week following attacks in Paris, France. (photo from UN Word Food Bank Organization and Daouda Guirou 06-2014)

Consider that pain and bewilderment at some point in the course of individual lives knocks people sobbing to their wretched knees no matter where those lives may have originated. Consider that universal agonies, common challenges, and simple human dignity make each of us worthy of some degree of compassion.

Imagine that the strength and resources which may be claimed through communication and reconciliation are far greater and much more sustainable than any likely to come from ignoring everything that binds the fate of one to that of another. The acknowledgement of a single possibility can change everything. It can heal a wounded city like Paris or restore humankind’s faith in what is best within us all.

Aberjhani
@ 20 November 20, 2015
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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The 2015 Bid for Power and History in Savannah

11/16/2015

Diva Magazine photo of Edna Branch Jackson, incumbent mayor of Savannah, Georgia (USA). (http://www.divabydesignonline.com/dashboard.html?entry=news-georgia-gets-more-black)

Journalist Patricia C. Stumb, in a 1999 Connect Savannah news magazine story titled “Peace, love & blessings…,” wrote of how I “found worldly consciousness in the heart of [my] hometown.” Her observation was surprisingly precise because during that period while living in Savannah, Georgia, I had indeed become more aware of my hometown on the global scale of things. I had also become more cognizant of myself as an author whose influences and inspirations tended often to derive from regions far beyond it.

However, expanded consciousness or not, there was no such thing as overlooking the profound thematic shift that occurred in the city’s history when Floyd Adams became its first African-American mayor in 1996. That event prompted the composition of these lines:

By way of an African wind
a letter came today.
It was not scribbled over
Hallmark fantasies or
popcultural postcards;
it was engraved on sweat-dyed scrolls
manufactured by centuries
of anguish, struggle, determination.
––from the poem A Letter Came Today (I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)

The thematic transition grew even more powerful in 2003 with the election of Otis Johnson as mayor of the city and in 2011 when Edna Branch Jackson won the office. Up until this point, too much of the story of African Americans in Savannah had been one of a people continuously oppressed and suppressed by history itself. Different industries (such as film) and individuals benefited economically from that history but Blacks native to the city have rarely done so to any significant degree.

The Re-Historicization of a Narrative

The elections of Adams, Johnson, and Jackson created a thematic evolution that has helped the city prepare for even more dramatic and culturally inclusive demographic shifts already in progress. Call it the re-historicization of a narrative that dates back at least to late 1800s Reconstruction.
It was then that the privileges of freedom bestowed upon African-Americans certain political and social responsibilities pertaining to both themselves and their lighter-hued brothers and sisters. They learned what all before and since then have had to learn: democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit one’s beloved extended community.

The years had been a long time coming before citizens of Savannah could begin to envision new sociopolitical dynamics that involved something other than oppression in its various nefarious forms. Leadership has never been an exact science but it has always found itself particularly challenged when tasked with elevating one segment of a society onto a level more politically, socially, and economically equitable with another.

However, the 2015 bid for power and history in Savannah is about more than practicing leadership to balance weighted scales. It is about giving shape to an historical context capable of sustaining progress on multiple fronts. It is about negotiating changes which some may find difficult to accept but which in fact cannot be avoided. Fortunately, city residents can choose between two excellent candidates for the tasks at hand: contender Eddie DeLoach and incumbent Mayor Jackson. A run-off election between the two is slated for December 1, 2015.

Video Notes on Past and Future Growth

The Infamous Iron Pipeline

Anyone hoping to replace Edna Jackson as mayor of Savannah is not telling residents anything new when they point out that the city has a crime problem which needs to be addressed in an aggressive manner. Certainly what happened to Crusader for Brotherhood advocate Semaj Clark in Yamacraw Village makes that about as clear as anything could. Yet what is true of Savannah is also true of Georgia, the United States, and the world in general (for this last we have the recent tragic example of the massacre in Paris, France).

It would be a mistake to buy into the notion that Mayor Jackson has been standing idly by and doing nothing but watching the situation grow worse. She has engaged the community not only on the issue of crime but on the topics of education, racial equality, economic growth, and the eradication of poverty. She has in fact addressed nearly every aspect of public administration and social justice while working devotedly as an inspired servant leader in this era of apparently nonstop globalization.

The issues of crime and gun violence in Savannah are not only about who is or is not sitting in the mayor’s office. They are about gun legislation that made it possible for Georgia to become part of the infamous iron pipeline allowing traffickers to illegally transport weapons to other states (such as New York) where stricter forms of regulation ensuring gun safety are in place. The issues, as it were, have to do with eliminating the underpinnings of poverty, classism, and the culture of racism that fuels criminality and perpetuates conditions which impede upward mobility.

Contender for position of mayor of Savannah: Eddie DeLoach. (photo by Steve Bisson for Savannah Morning News) http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2015-11-02/use-your-power-vote-today

Manifestation of a Progressive Vision

To say the incumbent mayor lacks vision for the city of Savannah would be a mistake as well. Jackson has been a catalyst, agent, and steward of positive change since as early as her participation in the Civil Rights Movement, and, as recently as when she lobbied President Barack Obama for his support on expansion of the Savannah River port. Her position as mayor of Savannah is itself the manifestation of a progressive vision for the city.

A better option than trying to paint Edna Jackson as a scapegoat might be to support her efforts to help Savannah fulfill its potential to become one of the world’s most dynamically cosmopolitan cities. That does not mean automatically agreeing with her various proposals. But it does mean taking a look at the larger picture while dialing back on presumptuous arrogance and condescension. Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen.

Aberjhani
© Nov 2015 Bright Skylark Literary Productions

One Notable Measure of Just How Far Savannah Has Come:

When the Lyrical Muse Sings the Creative Pen Dances

9/20/2015

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Article art graphic featuring black & white images of musician Nina Simone, Sonny Rollins, author Pat Conroy, author & editor Susan L. Taylor, King of Pop Michael, poet & educator Ja A. Jahannes, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, actor Danny Glover, artist Luther E. Vann, and more. (Bright Skylark Literary Productions)

If you’re a regular reader of my national African-American cultural arts column, you may have noticed that I have not been posting articles as frequently as I once did. The reason is simple enough. Having reached a certain point in the research for my current book-in-progress (at least one of them anyway) I had to reduce as many additional writing obligations as possible to fully concentrate on completion of the work.

For me, this is the part of authorship when the lyrical muse sings and the creative pen dances. The greater bulk of the more rigid tasks of verification and documentation have been satisfied, and imagination may be allowed to take over the processes of narrative construction. The resulting musical flow of image and language stamp the work with its own unique identity. And its own self-defined meanings destined to merge with different readers’ interpretations of the same.

The Writer and the Times

I started the national African-American cultural arts column on July 13, 2009, with a story about the debut of Johnny and Me, Savannah author Miriam K. Center’s play based on her friendship with the late 4-time Academy Award-winning composer Johnny Mercer. That was followed by a profile of acclaimed artist Jerome Meadows. The next month, August, saw the launch of the controversial series on the trial (and eventual execution) of Troy Anthony Davis, convicted for the murder of Savannah policeman Mark Allen MacPhail. Not writing about Davis’s trial, to my mind, would have been a case of gross negligence. Doing so was one early indication of what readers would discover over the next few years: basically, I found it impossible to restrict myself (as asked to do) to the subject of “the arts” as pertaining to African Americans.

How could that have been likely for someone who had already chronicled the global multicultural impact of the Harlem Renaissance in the pages of an encyclopedia, and whose first novel featured a cast of post-Millennials on a parallel Earth? I could no more refrain from engaging political discourse within a column bearing my name than Zora Neale Hurston could have resisted writing black dialect or Franz Kafka could have ignored the absurdities of his existential dilemmas.

Collage of images from the National African-American Art Examiner pages. See here are: King of Pop Michael Jackson, the African-American Family Monument in Savannah, Georgia, author Octavia Butler, slain officer Mark Allen MacPhail, artist Jerome Meadow, author John Lennon, executed Savannahian Troy Anthony Davis, and others.

Moreover, how could it even have been possible in the era that saw such titanic events as these: the two-term presidency of Barack H. Obama, America’s first African-American commander-in-chief, the domino effect of the Arab Spring in 2011, the death of a global pop icon like Michael Joseph Jackson in 2009, the advent of civil war in Syria with its subsequent refugee and migrant crisis, the heart-rending terror of Boko Haram and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the astonishing triumphs of the Marriage Equality Movement, massive shifts in population demographics, and the end of diplomatic estrangement between Cuba and the United States. Just to name a few.

This is not, of course, to say that during the same period I considered the cultural arts any less important than national or international politics. It has been more than thrilling to share with readers through this specific platform essays on such topics as: the poetry of Elizabeth Alexander, the life and legacy of Maya Angelou, the novels and ever-increasing relevance of Toni Morrison, reports on winners of the Nobel Prize, the enduring literary vision of James Baldwin, the annual global triumph of International Jazz Day, profiles of Kennedy Center honorees, and reviews of some of the most important films of our modern times.

Framing the 21st Century with Interpretive Journalism

I also took the liberty of expanding the parameters of the column to introduce a number of analytical concepts particularly applicable to the 21st century. These included several running series that provided in-depth explorations of captivating issues.

When it came to political events and social developments, I named my style of coverage interpretive journalism for its combination of original news reportage and editorial commentary––sometimes presented with poetry. Emerging facts, such as those regarding the 7 children and 20 adults murdered by 20-year-old Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School (and in the home he shared with his mother) in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 could send recipients of such news reeling for years with shock and disbelief. It was the potential significance behind the facts that I chose to communicate to readers and which I hoped they found useful.

Indeed, much of this century’s first decade and a half has been comprised of trends and unforeseen progressions that basically trashed reality as humanity knew it and reconstructed it via the mechanisms of a technology-based revolution. No sphere of endeavor––whether in classrooms and boardrooms, or on football fields and battlefields––was left unchanged. Some of my stronger attempts to bring usable meaning to those historical changes took the form of the following long-term projects:

100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
Annual Black History Month Notebook
Guerrilla Decontextualization
Abbreviated Mind Syndrome
The Michael Jackson Legacy Files
Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis
The Text and Meaning Series

Each of these broke new ground more because history itself demanded it than because of any desire on my part to prove myself a savvy wordsmith. Are they likely to emerge again once the current book is completed? The possibility is a very real one. But which venue they will occupy or what form they will take, for the moment, is an open question. A couple of them have long been tagged for eventual development and publication as books.

More certain than anything else at this time is my commitment to completing the work at hand. It has patiently awaited my full attention for several years and the time has come to honor our faith in each other.

Aberjhani
© 20 September, 2015

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Recovering Lost Contexts and the 'Sweetness of Hearts'

8/20/2015

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Anyone in the habit of keeping journals––as I have been for many years––has probably noticed the advantage they provide when the need arises to confirm specific incidents or meetings from the past. Writers of memoir, biography, and autobiography in particular can appreciate such leverage.

The habit of journaling becomes especially useful when looking back and discovering that you were part of an extraordinary occasion, or associated with an exceptional individual, that you somehow failed to recognize for their greater value. It was only after Time placed within your hands the proper tools of knowledge and perspective that you could recognize the experience for the individual nugget of golden significance that it was. The possibility of claiming such overlooked treasures the first time around is only one reason to consider making it a habit to recognize the innate potential for beauty and worth inherent in all things.

Connections Known, Unknown, & Rediscovered

As wisely as most of us guard against over-sharing on the internet, there are some ways––literally and figuratively––it functions as a supplemental journal of our lives. Celebrities who have seen extremely private photographs suddenly made public can testify to why that is not always a good thing. Researchers who have needed to identify leads to critical hypotheses proposing connections between seemingly unrelated elements can demonstrate why and how it can be.

I had given little thought to either prospect until receiving an inforapid infographic illustrating different facets of my literary connections. Most of what it shows has long been a matter of public record and knowledge. What, however, caught me by surprise were the associations it identified from my time at the New College of California in San Francisco.

Inforapid infographic partial chart of literary associations connected to author Aberjhani.

Although it is a great honor to see my name beside that of such superb modern talents as the author of The Opening of the Field, Robert Duncan, and Black Mountain Poets founder Robert Creeley, the one name I would have expected to see was not there. That would have been educator and poet Duncan McNaughton, who established the school’s Poetics Program and with whom (as pointed out in my recently-updated literary profile) I actually studied. Yet, ironically, the New College of California poets identified to represent a legitimate substantial line of influence on the evolution of my literary aesthetics.

I say more in the pages of a current book in progress about important lessons learned from McNaughton after making my way to class following eight full hours at work, but for now I will focus on the dynamics of reclaiming contexts and meanings. Since I was only one of many that McNaughton taught at New College, it is unlikely that he would remember me as well as I remember him. Still, while revisiting this period in my life to complete the noted work in progress, I have been greatly inspired to read online about his more recent literary activities and publications.

Poet and educator Duncan McNaughton. (photograph 2012 copyright by Rhett Redelings)

Rewilding Poetry

Seeing someone who served as your mentor decades ago continuing to burn his literary candles at both ends in 2015 has a way of obliterating any excuses you might want to latch onto for not completing challenging work. In this case, I was particularly intrigued when I came across a piece titled “Rewilding Poetry,” by Canadian poet Sharon Thesen, in which she discusses an aspect of McNaughton’s poetics that runs parallel to recent observations of my own:

“What San Francisco poet Duncan McNaughton referred to as ‘sweetness of heart’ strikes me as a possibly interesting move toward a re-wilding that I believe is constantly trying to take place anyway. Sweetness of heart, McNaughton says, is ‘what is really common to our desirous souls, the quality which overcomes all barriers in order to circulate anew the heart’s creative feeling among men and women, who have more than enough reason to despair.’ To radically expand the field of feeling seems an unintended ongoing work of any poetic practice of the wild.” –– (Sharon Thesen, Rewilding Poetry, 2015 Cascadia Poetry Festival)

The term “rewilding poetry” was new to me until I read Thesen’s essay (she actually expresses a preference for the phrase “re-worlding poetry”). However, the essence of the concept is one I began contemplating after the late Ja A. Jahannes edited and published Black Gold: An Anthology of Black Poetry.

Jahannes looked to a strategy of demographic inclusiveness to practice rewilding poetry after noting, like Amiri Baraka before him, the sterility some would impose upon contemporary poetry through an institutionalization characterized by elitist exclusion. Impressive intellects, and sometimes even seductively beautiful minds, may still be found periodically within such superbly-positioned chambers but any “sweetness of heart” tends to be less readily available.

An Exercise in Mindfulness

The names of the late Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera, the phenomenal writer Henry Dumas, and the great jazzmaster Sun Ra are also linked to mine on the inforapid graphic. The connections here are primarily through various reviews and essays written by me and in which they are either the primary subjects or frequently referenced. In addition, I share with others on the graphic, such as science fiction author Suzette Haden Elgin and the brilliant poet Jay Wright, a deep interest in certain metaphysical inquiries and cross-cultural dynamics.

So why or how does any or all of this matter? Let’s call it an exercise in mindfulness regarding the nature of our unseen personal reality. Or to put it another way, and just for the sake of having a little wordplay fun, we can call it a study in dispassionate digital bio-contextual constructs. What it may mean more than anything else is that the stories and meanings of our lives are no less multiple than they are singular. Any true understanding of them, even when rightfully claimed as one’s own––for some of us anyway––can take the better part of a lifetime.

Aberjhani
© Aug 2015

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<<Previous

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

For Love of Paris and a More Compassionate World (Part 2)

Of Love and Bridges

A Messy and Complicated Concept

The 2015 Bid for Power and History in Savannah

The Re-Historicization of a Narrative

Video Notes on Past and Future Growth

The Infamous Iron Pipeline

Manifestation of a Progressive Vision

One Notable Measure of Just How Far Savannah Has Come:

When the Lyrical Muse Sings the Creative Pen Dances

The Writer and the Times

Framing the 21st Century with Interpretive Journalism

Recovering Lost Contexts and the 'Sweetness of Hearts'

Connections Known, Unknown, & Rediscovered

Rewilding Poetry

An Exercise in Mindfulness

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Discovering 'The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man' in 2017 (part 1 of 2)

On Timelines and Parallel Conditions

A Few Thoughts from Trevor Noah

Refuting Stereotypes of Irredeemable Infamy

For Love of Paris and a More Compassionate World (Part 2)

Of Love and Bridges

A Messy and Complicated Concept

The 2015 Bid for Power and History in Savannah

The Re-Historicization of a Narrative

Video Notes on Past and Future Growth

​The Infamous Iron Pipeline

Manifestation of a Progressive Vision

One Notable Measure of Just How Far Savannah Has Come:

When the Lyrical Muse Sings the Creative Pen Dances

The Writer and the Times

Framing the 21st Century with Interpretive Journalism

Recovering Lost Contexts and the 'Sweetness of Hearts'

Connections Known, Unknown, & Rediscovered

Rewilding Poetry

An Exercise in Mindfulness

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

The Infamous Iron Pipeline