Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Reflecting on the Year 2016 and stepping not-too-boldly into 2017 (part 1 of 2)

12/5/2016

Sharing some perspective on outgoing year 2016 and incoming New Year 2017 with essay and Postered Poetics by Aberjhani.

Somehow I developed an unkind tendency to underestimate at the end of each year the amount of work accomplished during the previous 12 months. I used to like the feeling of being surprised to discover how much really got done, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. It’s just not as fair to the truth, and some of my best go-for-the-gold efforts, as such an assessment should be.

But my New Year 2017 resolutions include a commitment to breaking the self-negation habit. As a practice, it’s just not a helpful one when it comes to planning future projects or establishing once-and-for-all final deadlines for current endeavors. In addition, miscalculating earnestly-applied efforts is unfair to the integrity of the work itself, as well as to those who helped make it happen and give it increased value. Therefore, in honor of the difficult, to paraphrase author Alice Walker, below is a list of links to tributes, essays, and reviews that I managed to share while continuing to work on my current nonfiction book. These are followed by further reflections on the year that was and the year to come.

Year 2016 Bright Skylark Table of Contents

Giving Hope and Compassion a Chance in 2016 (1/1/2016)
Dancing with David Bowie 'under the Serious Moonlight' (1/12/2016)
Harlem Renaissance Notebook for National History Day and Black History Month (2/1/2016)
Christmas Gets a Valentine's Day Weekend Reboot (2/13/2016)
Painting Poems and Living History at the Jepson Center for the Arts (3/9/2016)
Sustaining the Sweet Joyful Howl of Poetry in the 21st Century (4/3/2016)
Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2) (4/22/2016)
Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore's Unwavering Optimism (part 2 of 2)
4/24/2016
Something More Dynamic than Tear-flooded Woe (5/10/2016)
Muhammad Ali: 10 Ways to Interpret One Man's Radiant Heart (6/5/2016)
Taking Time to Think, and Love, Again (7/2/2016)
Author Miriam Center Honored with Congressional Birthday Wish (8/9/2016)
Remembering Acclaimed Author James Alan McPherson (9/4/2016)
Dodging Curve Balls and Bullets in the Year 2016 (9/25/2016)
The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love (11/15/2016)

Ripples of Political Pandemonium

One of the most challenging aspects of accomplishing anything of significance in the year 2016 was remaining focused on priorities. That can be difficult throughout the course of any election year but it was exceptionally so during the 2016 battle for the White House.

The various low-points and dubious tactics that resulted in the United States’ new President-Elect have been chronicled sufficiently enough that they do not need to be repeated here. What does bear re-emphasizing is that not only did the American people elect a new president whose worldwide business empire practically guarantees compromising conflicts of interest. They also chose to endorse standards of conduct likely to create ripples of political pandemonium for years to come (though hopefully and prayerfully––not).

So why is that? Because we cannot sanction free-for-all lawlessness when it suits the purposes of one class or race within a society while constructing billion-dollar prison complexes in which to enslave those for whom such lawlessness has not been deemed appropriate. This is more than a matter of practicing double standards. The issue is recognizing the chaos that can stem from specific choices and, for better or worse, proclaiming ownership to correct the damage incurred.

Video Notes on Barack Obama: Giving an American President His Proper Due

Remembrance and Gratitude

If nonstop political mayhem was not enough to distract many of from reaching targeted goals, other factors played their parts as well. We cannot engage life without periodically, appropriately, pausing to honor those who have passed on before us. Among those who passed in 2016 and prompted me to reflect upon their impact on the world overall and on my life in particular, to name only a few in no special order, were these:

The Great Muhammad Ali
Luther E. Vann (visual artist)
James Alan McPherson (author)
Natalie Cole (Performing Artist)
George Michael (Singer-Songwriter)
Gloria Naylor (author)
David Bowie (musician and actor)
The Beloved Artist Known as Prince (Creative Genius)
Leonard Cohen (singer-songwriter-poet)
Billy Paul (musician/social advocate)
Cuban Revolutionary and President Fidel Castro
Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher (Hollywood icons, Mother & Daughter)
Zsa Zsa Gabor (actress, socialite)
Ron Glass (actor)
Florence Henderson (actress)
Bernie Worrell (musician/keyboardist)
Anton Yelchin (actor)
Gwen Ifill (television journalist)
Maurice White (musician/Earth Wind and Fire)

They are remembered not to mourn the loss of their lives, but to express gratitude for whatever gifts of knowledge, love, and empowerment their existences bestowed upon humanity.

NEXT: Reflecting on the Year 2016 & stepping not-too-boldly into 2017 (part 2)

Aberjhani
Bright Skylark Literary Productions
©Dec 2016/January 2017

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Muhammad Ali: 10 Ways to Interpret One Man's Radiant Heart

6/5/2016

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Classic "The Passion of Muhammad Ali" 1968 Esquire Magazine cover photograph by Carl Fischer.

here is within the human heart, I believe, a quality of intelligence that has been known to surpass that attributed to the human mind. The idea is one Muhammad Ali might have appreciated because in director Clare Lewins’ ten-star film documentary, I Am Ali, the fighter shares these words: “Man judges man’s actions. God judges man’s heart.”

When tapped and cultivated, or made a naturally dominant trait of an individual’s personality, the heart’s intelligence radiates a wise benevolence capable of assuming different powerful forms.

As fellow heavyweight champion and Christian minister George Foreman testified:

“Sometimes people come to me and say, ‘What do you think? Was Muhammad Ali the world’s greatest boxer?’ And I feel almost insulted because boxing was just something he did. I mean that’s no way to define Muhammad Ali. He was one of the greatest men to ever appear on the scene of the earth” (from I Am Ali, 2014).

Poster for the definitive 2014 biographical film on Muhammad Ali: "I Am Ali."

When the radiance of the heart emanated through the person of Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) he could easily, at different times, be defined in one of at least 10 different ways:

As a brash cosmic humorist
An ancient warrior recalled to a 20th-century battle
A poet charmed by the music of prophecy
Intrigued philosopher
Political conscience of an era
Passionate educator
Astonished lover
Devoted patriarch
Servant leader
Slightly mad holy-man

He could also, just to break the established rule and take things even further just as he might, be described as an enigmatically inspiring presence in a painfully turbulent world during sadly perilous times. The champion boxer emerged during the 1960s and 1970s to make everything else that he was––and what so many of us now have the luxury of claiming to be in this 21st-century world–– possible.

Of Saints and Athletes

On the iconic and controversial April 1968 cover of Esquire Magazine, the devout Muslim Ali duplicated the famous image of the Christian Saint Sebastian. Shot through with arrows for converting people to Christianity while enlisted as a Roman soldier, Sebastian (c. 256–c. 288 AD) was reportedly left for dead but miraculously recovered and confronted his would-be executioner. He was then then bludgeoned to death and in time adopted as a spiritual protector to call upon during plagues, and as a patron saint of warriors, individuals desiring a saintly death, and athletes.

As in the classic portraits of the martyred Saint Sebastian, the image of Muhammad Ali on the cover of Esquire shows him shot through with six bloody arrows. During the photo shoot, Ali identified the arrows as symbols of political figures whom he felt had positioned themselves to be his his “tormentors”: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), Vietnam War Commanding Army General William Westmoreland (1941-2005), U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1916-2009), U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1909-1994), political consultant Clark Clifford (1906-1998), and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978).

The specific names given the arrows could just as easily (or almost anyway) have been exchanged for the various social injustices which the garrulous gadfly witnessed and protested against: relentless racism, poverty, corporate colonialism, unnecessary war, class discrimination, and unequal education. The names could also have been switched out for any number of others who felt more threatened than charmed by the great man’s uncanny charisma.

A Curative Force of Genuine Love

It takes an oversized personality like his to absorb and survive the kind of social and political poisons designed precisely to destroy men such as Muhammad Ali.

It takes the most exceptional of hearts occupied by the rarest of souls to transform those toxins into a curative force of genuine love, one capable of healing and empowering multitudes just by being its beautiful shining courageous self.

Aberjhani
5 June 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore's Unwavering Optimism (part 2 of 2)

4/24/2016

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Founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project discusses climate change at TED Talks. (image courtesy of TED Talks)

Welcome to part 2 of Presenting A Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism. To read part 1 with the accompanying poem, titled The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth, please click here. Part 2 featuring a continuation of the transcription of Al Gore’s Ted Talk video, begins now:

Speaking of the North Pole

This is also connected to the extinction crisis. We're in danger of losing 50 percent of all the living species on earth by the end of this century. And already, land-based plants and animals are now moving towards the poles at an average rate of 15 feet per day.

Speaking of the North Pole, last December 29, the same storm that caused historic flooding in the American Midwest, raised temperatures at the North Pole 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, causing the thawing of the North Pole in the middle of the long, dark, winter, polar night. And when the land-based ice of the Arctic melts, it raises sea level.

Paul Nicklen's beautiful photograph from Svalbard illustrates this. It's more dangerous coming off Greenland and particularly, Antarctica. The 10 largest risk cities for sea-level rise by population are mostly in South and Southeast Asia. When you measure it by assets at risk, number one is Miami: three and a half trillion dollars at risk. Number three: New York and Newark.

I was in Miami last fall during the supermoon, one of the highest high-tide days. And there were fish from the ocean swimming in some of the streets of Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale and Del Rey. And this happens regularly during the highest-tide tides now. Not with rain -- they call it "sunny-day flooding." It comes up through the storm sewers. And the Mayor of Miami speaks for many when he says it is long past time this can be viewed through a partisan lens. This is a crisis that's getting worse day by day.

We have to move beyond partisanship. And I want to take a moment to honor these House Republicans [Applause] who had the courage last fall to step out and take a political risk, by telling the truth about the climate crisis. So the cost of the climate crisis is mounting up, there are many of these aspects I haven't even mentioned. It's an enormous burden.

The Number 1 Risk to the Global Economy

I'll mention just one more, because the World Economic Forum last month in Davos, after their annual survey of 750 economists, said the climate crisis is now the number one risk to the global economy. So you get central bankers like Mark Carney, the head of the UK Central Bank, saying the vast majority of the carbon reserves are unburnable. Subprime carbon. I'm not going to remind you what happened with subprime mortgages, but it's the same thing.

"The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth" Postered Poetics by Aberjhani. Earth Day 2016.

If you look at all of the carbon fuels that were burned since the beginning of the industrial revolution, this is the quantity burned in the last 16 years. Here are all the ones that are proven and left on the books, 28 trillion dollars. The International Energy Agency says only this amount can be burned. So the rest, 22 trillion dollars -- unburnable. Risk to the global economy. That's why divestment movement makes practical sense and is not just a moral imperative.

The Exciting News

So the answer to the first question, "Must we change?" is yes, we have to change. Second question, "Can we change?" This is the exciting news! The best projections in the world 16 years ago were that by 2010, the world would be able to install 30 gigawatts of wind capacity. We beat that mark by 14 and a half times over. We see an exponential curve for wind installations now. We see the cost coming down dramatically.

Some countries -- take Germany, an industrial powerhouse with a climate not that different from Vancouver's, by the way -- one day last December, got 81 percent of all its energy from renewable resources, mainly solar and wind. A lot of countries are getting more than half on an average basis.

More good news: energy storage, from batteries particularly, is now beginning to take off because the cost has been coming down very dramatically to solve the intermittency problem. With solar, the news is even more exciting! The best projections 14 years ago were that we would install one gigawatt per year by 2010. When 2010 came around, we beat that mark by 17 times over. Last year, we beat it by 58 times over. This year, we're on track to beat it 68 times over. We're going to win this. We are going to prevail.

The exponential curve on solar is even steeper and more dramatic. When I came to this stage 10 years ago, this is where it was. We have seen a revolutionary breakthrough in the emergence of these exponential curves. [Applause] And the cost has come down 10 percent per year for 30 years. And it's continuing to come down.

Now, the business community has certainly noticed this, because it's crossing the grid parity point. Cheaper solar penetration rates are beginning to rise. Grid parity is understood as that line, that threshold, below which renewable electricity is cheaper than electricity from burning fossil fuels. That threshold is a little bit like the difference between 32 degrees Fahrenheit and 33 degrees Fahrenheit, or zero and one Celsius. It's a difference of more than one degree; it's the difference between ice and water. And it's the difference between markets that are frozen up, and liquid flows of capital into new opportunities for investment.

This is the biggest new business opportunity in the history of the world, and two-thirds of it is in the private sector. We are seeing an explosion of new investment. Starting in 2010, investments globally in renewable electricity generation surpassed fossils. The gap has been growing ever since. The projections for the future are even more dramatic, even though fossil energy is now still subsidized at a rate 40 times larger than renewables. And by the way, if you add the projections for nuclear on here, particularly if you assume that the work many are doing to try to break through to safer and more acceptable, more affordable forms of nuclear, this could change even more dramatically.

An Answer in 3 Parts

So is there any precedent for such a rapid adoption of a new technology? Well, there are many, but let's look at cell phones. In 1980, AT&T, then Ma Bell, commissioned McKinsey to do a global market survey of those clunky new mobile phones that appeared then. "How many can we sell by the year 2000?" they asked. McKinsey came back and said, "900,000." And sure enough, when the year 2000 arrived, they did sell 900,000 -- in the first three days. And for the balance of the year, they sold 120 times more. And now there are more cell connections than there are people in the world.

So, why were they not only wrong, but way wrong? I've asked that question myself, "Why?" [Laughter] And I think the answer is in three parts. First, the cost came down much faster than anybody expected, even as the quality went up. And low-income countries, places that did not have a landline grid -- they leap-frogged to the new technology. The big expansion has been in the developing counties.

So what about the electricity grids in the developing world? Well, not so hot. And in many areas, they don't exist. There are more people without any electricity at all in India than the entire population of the United States of America. So now we're getting this: solar panels on grass huts and new business models that make it affordable. Muhammad Yunus financed this one in Bangladesh with micro-credit. This is a village market. Bangladesh is now the fastest-deploying country in the world: two systems per minute on average, night and day.

And we have all we need: enough energy from the Sun comes to the Earth every hour to supply the full world's energy needs for an entire year. It's actually a little bit less than an hour. So the answer to the second question, "Can we change?" is clearly "Yes." And it's an ever-firmer "yes."

Last Question: "Will we change?" Paris really was a breakthrough, some of the provisions are binding and the regular reviews will matter a lot. But nations aren't waiting, they're going ahead.

China has already announced that starting next year, they're adopting a nationwide cap and trade system. They will likely link up with the European Union. The United States has already been changing. All of these coal plants were proposed in the next 10 years and canceled. All of these existing coal plants were retired. All of these coal plants have had their retirement announced. All of them-- canceled. We are moving forward.

Last Year: if you look at all of the investment in new electricity generation in the United States, almost three-quarters was from renewable energy, mostly wind and solar. We are solving this crisis. The only question is: how long will it take to get there? So, it matters that a lot of people are organizing to insist on this change. Almost 400,000 people marched in New York City before the UN special session on this. Many thousands, tens of thousands, marched in cities around the world. And so, I am extremely optimistic. As I said before, we are going to win this.

To Quote Poet Wallace Stevens

I'll finish with this story. When I was 13 years old, I heard that proposal by President Kennedy to land a person on the Moon and bring him back safely in 10 years. And I heard adults of that day and time say, "That's reckless, expensive, may well fail." But eight years and two months later, in the moment that Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, there was great cheer that went up in NASA's mission control in Houston. Here's a little-known fact about that: the average age of the systems engineers, the controllers in the room that day, was 26, which means, among other things, their age, when they heard that challenge, was 18.

We now have a moral challenge that is in the tradition of others that we have faced. One of the greatest poets of the last century in the US, Wallace Stevens, wrote a line that has stayed with me: "After the final 'no,' there comes a 'yes,' and on that 'yes', the future world depends." When the abolitionists started their movement, they met with no after no after no. And then came a yes. The Women's Suffrage and Women's Rights Movement met endless no's, until finally, there was a yes.

The Civil Rights Movement, the movement against apartheid, and more recently, the movement for gay and lesbian rights here in the United States and elsewhere. After the final "no" comes a "yes." When any great moral challenge is ultimately resolved into a binary choice between what is right and what is wrong, the outcome is fore-ordained because of who we are as human beings. Ninety-nine percent of us, that is where we are now and it is why we're going to win this. We have everything we need.

Some still doubt that we have the will to act, but I say the will to act is itself a renewable resource. Thank you very much.

––Applause for Al Gore

A Bright Skylark Literary Productions Post
Earth Day Weekend 2016

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Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

4/22/2016

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"The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth" special PRINCE TRIBUTE EDITION Postered Poetics by Aberjhani (featuring Hubble Spacecraft photography).

Should people refer to the increasing occurrence of extreme climate events as evidence, signs, or warnings? Whatever the chosen terminology, it has become clear enough that humanity can no longer ignore the impact human activities have on the Earth.

The heart-stopping flash flood that brought Houston, Texas, to a halt earlier this week, the increasing intensity of hurricanes and tornadoes, and the unsettling occurrence of rapid-fire earthquakes in places where few ever popped up before have made something very clear. And that is this: the warnings about climate change that began to emerge decades ago could not have come too soon.

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

The Earth in rapture sings a holy hurricane
of ten thousand prophet-poets
burning stones and blood to the music
of higher rainbow spheres, every leaping tree
declares itself a divine idiot dancing inside
shadows of history and flames of tomorrow.

Our Earth in rapture screams the muted glory
of a shy goddess wed to ecstasy and destiny.
Her veil of tidal waves and indigo clouds
hide scalding tears of smoke and lava.
Volcano rumblings of cosmic grief
moan soft blue thunder as she re-births
her eternal rhythms of eternal love.

Aberjhani (from Visions of Skylark Dressed in Black)

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

In a TED Talk presented earlier this year, founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project Al Gore shared why he believes humanity is in a good position to win the battle against self-destruction. The YouTube video below, first posted by “Climate Reality” under a standard share license, features his talk and is followed a transcript of the main address:

"I was excited to be a part of the "Dream" theme, and then I found out I'm leading off the "Nightmare?" section of it. [Laughter] And certainly there are things about the climate crisis that qualify. And I have some bad news, but I have a lot more good news.

"I'm going propose three questions and the answer to the first one necessarily involves a little bad news. But -- hang on, because the answers to the second and third questions really are very positive.

"So the first question is, "Do we really have to change?" And of course, the Apollo Mission, among other things changed the environmental movement, really launched the modern environmental movement 18 months after this Earthrise picture was first seen on earth, the first Earth Day was organized. And we learned a lot about ourselves looking back at our planet from space."

An Open Sewer

"And one of the things that we learned confirmed what the scientists have long told us. One of the most essential facts about the climate crisis has to do with the sky. As this picture illustrates, the sky is not the vast and limitless expanse that appears when we look up from the ground. It is a very thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet. That right now is the open sewer for our industrial civilization as it's currently organized.

"We are spewing 110 million tons of heat-trapping global warming pollution into it every 24 hours, free of charge, go ahead. And there are many sources of the greenhouse gases, I'm certainly not going to go through them all. I'm going to focus on the main one, but agriculture is involved, diet is involved, population is involved. Management of forests, transportation, the oceans, the melting of the permafrost. But I'm going to focus on the heart of the problem, which is the fact that we still rely on dirty, carbon-based fuels for 85 percent of all the energy that our world burns every year.

"And you can see from this image that after World War II, the emission rates started really accelerating. And the accumulated amount of man-made, global warming pollution that is up in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours, 365 days a year. Fact-checked over and over again, conservative, it's the truth."

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

"Now it's a big planet, but [Explosion sound] that is a lot of energy, particularly when you multiply it 400,000 times per day. And all that extra heat energy is heating up the atmosphere, the whole earth system. Let's look at the atmosphere. This is a depiction of what we used to think of as the normal distribution of temperatures. The white represents normal temperature days; 1951-1980 are arbitrarily chosen. The blue are cooler than average days, the red are warmer than average days. But the entire curve has moved to the right in the 1980s.

"And you'll see in the lower right-hand corner the appearance of statistically significant numbers of extremely hot days. In the 90s, the curve shifted further. And in the last 10 years, you see the extremely hot days are now more numerous than the cooler than average days. In fact, they are 150 times more common on the surface of the earth than they were just 30 years ago. So we're having record-breaking temperatures.

"Fourteen of the 15 of the hottest years ever measured with instruments have been in this young century. The hottest of all was last year. Last month [January 2016] was the 371st month in a row warmer than the 20th-century average. And for the first time, not only the warmest January, but for the first time, it was more than two degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average. These higher temperatures are having an effect on animals, plants, people, ecosystems."

This Has Consequences

"But on a global basis, 93 percent of all the extra heat energy is trapped in the oceans. And the scientists can measure the heat buildup much more precisely now at all depths: deep, mid-ocean, the first few hundred meters. And this, too, is accelerating. It goes back more than a century. And more than half of the increase has been in the last 19 years. This has consequences.

"The first order of consequence: the ocean-based storms get stronger. Super Typhoon Haiyan went over areas of the Pacific five and a half degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal before it slammed into Tacloban, as the most destructive storm ever to make landfall. Pope Francis, who has made such a difference to this whole issue, visited Tacloban right after that. Superstorm Sandy went over areas of the Atlantic nine degrees warmer than normal before slamming into New York and New Jersey.

"The second order of consequences are affecting all of us right now. The warmer oceans are evaporating much more water vapor into the skies. Average humidity worldwide has gone up four percent. And it creates these atmospheric rivers. The Brazilian scientists call them "flying rivers." And they funnel all of that extra water vapor over the land where storm conditions trigger these massive record-breaking downpours. This [picture] is from Montana. Take a look at this storm last August. As it moves over Tucson, Arizona. It literally splashes off the city. These downpours are really unusual.

"Last July in Houston, Texas, it rained for two days, 162 billion gallons. That represents more than two days of the full flow of Niagara Falls in the middle of the city, which was, of course, paralyzed. These record downpours are creating historic floods and mudslides.

"This one is from Chile last year. And you'll see that warehouse going by. There are oil tankers cars going by. This is from Spain last September, you could call this the running of the cars and trucks, I guess. Every night on the TV news now is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. [Laughter] I mean, really."

Systemic Causation

“The insurance industry has certainly noticed, the losses have been mounting up. They're not under any illusions about what's happening. And the causality requires a moment of discussion. We're used to thinking of linear cause and linear effect -- one cause, one effect. This is systemic causation. As the great Kevin Trenberth says, ‘All storms are different now. There's so much extra energy in the atmosphere, there's so much extra water vapor. Every storm is different now.’

“So, the same extra heat pulls the soil moisture out of the ground and causes these deeper, longer, more pervasive droughts and many of them are underway right now. It dries out the vegetation and causes more fires in the western part of North America. There's certainly been evidence of that, a lot of them. More lightning, as the heat energy builds up, a considerable amount of additional lightning also.

“These climate-related disasters also have geopolitical consequences and create instability. The climate-related historic drought that started in Syria in 2006 destroyed 60 percent of the farms in Syria, killed 80 percent of the livestock, and drove 1.5 million climate refugees into the cities of Syria, where they collided with another 1.5 million refugees from the Iraq War. And along with other factors, that opened the gates of Hell that people are trying to close now.

“The US Defense Department has long warned of consequences from the climate crisis, including refugees, food and water shortages and pandemic disease. Right now we're seeing microbial diseases from the tropics spread to the higher latitudes; the transportation revolution has had a lot to do with this. But the changing conditions change the latitudes in the areas where these microbial diseases can become endemic and change the range of the vectors, like mosquitoes and ticks that carry them.

“The Zika epidemic now –– we're better positioned in North America because it's still a little too cool and we have a better public health system. But when women in some regions of South and Central America are advised not to get pregnant for two years ––that's something new–– that ought to get our attention. The Lancet, one of the two greatest medical journals in the world, last summer labeled this a medical emergency now. And there are many factors because of it.”

NEXT: Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism Part 2

Aberjhani
©Earth Day 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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Sustaining the Sweet Joyful Howl of Poetry in the 21st Century

4/3/2016

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“Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable for the catastrophes rearranging their lives.” --Aberjhani from Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays. ©Postered Poetics based on original poetry Spencerian calligraphy art by G.A. Gaskell. #NPM16 #PocketPoem

The launch of National Poetry Month, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, in April 1996, came just three years after the debut issue of the Savannah Literary Journal in 1993. In addition to 49 poems by 35 brilliant writers with regional and national reputations, the 1996 edition of the journal featured six works of fiction and three pieces of creative nonfiction.

My contribution to the journal that year was a personal essay but the title of it, Angels and Shakespeare (later published in I Made My Boy Out of Poetry), revealed the central place verse has always held in my life. So did this epigraph borrowed from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda:

“For this reason Monday burns like
oil... and it howls in passing like a
wounded wheel...”

(Pablo Neruda, from Walking Around)

Both National Poetry Month and the publication of the journal (up until 2001) could be considered as invitations to readers, writers, and publishers to explore a more deeply intimate relationship with language. These invitations coaxed them as well to experience the different levels of power words can wield when endowing our lives with either newly-claimed or wholly-unexpected meaning.

The responses, now 20 years down the timeline, have mushroomed into a worldwide cultural mainstay where National Poetry Month (NPM) is concerned. In regard to the Savannah Literary Journal, published by the former Savannah Writers Workshop, it has confirmed the value of one of the city’s most prized artistic legacies.

Of Bloggers and Nobel Laureates

But what should we say of poetry as a whole during the last two decades when life as so many once knew it shape-shifted into a spinning mass of digital signals, globalized communities unbounded by geographic borders, and astounding varieties of terror clashing head-on with determined demands for liberty?

Former Poetry Society of Georgia member Gerald Chan Sieg (1909-2005) receiving the Savannah Literary Journal Irene Tromble McAlister Literary Prize from editor Robert Keber in 1999. (photo Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection)

That now populous demographic of humanity known as bloggers did not exist in 1996 and programmer Peter Merholz would not condense the term “weblog” to invent the word “blog” until 1999. Nevertheless, poetically-inclined bloggers during the first and second decades of this 21st century have done a great deal to ensure poetry occupies a prominent position within the global imagination and humanity’s collective ethical consciousness.

Moreover, the ever-mindful Nobel Prize Committee actually saw fit in 1996 to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012) "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality." And in 2011 it bestowed that same honor upon Sweden’s Tomas Tranströmer , "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality."

A Movement Designed to Inspire

Obviously the Academy of American Poets’ commitment to recognizing, honoring, and documenting literary excellence within the work of American Poets did not begin with the establishment of NPM. That happened back in 1934 when founder Marie Bullock surveyed America’s literary landscape and came to a certain conclusion.

Despite the quietly-evolving cultural canonization at the time of such poets as Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Jean Toomer (1894-1967), Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), E.E. Cummings (1894-1962), T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), and other American quill-masters of the period, it became apparent that more needed to be done to place poetry on some level of esteem comparable to what it stirred in the literary capitals—such as Paris, London, and Dublin––of Europe.

National Poetry Month more than half a century later represented a game-changing upgrade from previous efforts. Since its start, affiliated programs each successive year have helped observations to grow in scope and influence. Initiatives such as Poem in Your Pocket Day (observed this year on April 21), the Dear Poet Project, and Poem-A-Day (via email) contribute immensely to sustaining the sweet joyful howl of poetry in these new millennial times. The key words and hashtags that dominate social media every April––like #npm16, #pocketpoem, #jazzpoetry, #celebratingpoetry, and the tagged names of favorite poets––denote only one small measure of how successful the campaign has become.

Cover of Academy of American Poets Journal Vol 50 NPM16. “Greens, Biopsy 2” Digital C Print 2007 by artist Yedda Morrison.

It also did not hurt when citizens of the United States elected a lover and writer of poetry, Barack H. Obama, as their first African-American president in 2008. The following is from a 2009 essay written to commemorate both NPM and Jazz Appreciation Month:

…The birth of the Academy meant the birth of a movement designed to inspire, cultivate, and preserve the voice of American poets. And although it likely was not his intention to do so, President Barack Obama extended that movement not only by bearing the “stigma” of being an accomplished wordsmith but by inviting Elizabeth Alexander––an author of several books but of whom many had never heard until Obama spoke her name––to serve as his Inauguration Day poet.

(Aberjhani, from All that National Poetry Month Jazz)

If there is one thing populations of the world have needed, and received, from poetry for the past two decades, it has been inspiration. But not only inspiration in that classic form which reaffirms the value of faith.

Poetry in our post 9/11 era provides the kind of inspiration that defiantly raises poets’ voices against the brutalities of war, the insanities of terrorism, and the indignities of oppression in all its toxic forms. It empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.

Although the last edition (to date) of the Savannah Literary Journal was published in 2001, its legacy continues to stand as a richly inspiring one. Many of the poets, essayists, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers featured in its pages have since gone on to win national and international acclaim in various fields. These are but a few listed in no particular order: Janice Daugharty, Linda Rocheleau, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, David C. Hightower, Susan Johnson, Lily Keber, Ja A. Jahannes (1942 -2015), Errol Miller, Kathleen Thompson, Toussaint St. Negritude, Dufflyn Lammers, Anis Mojgani, and Vaughnette Goode-Walker. Again, these represent only a few.

Most would probably tell you their greatest contributions to the literary arts thus far have not been particular poems or stories or books. They have instead been the relationships cultivated with the hearts and souls who heard what they had to say and then drew from that hearing enough motivation to speak their own truths to power and pain and joy.

Despite the Cacophony

Whether through contributors to literary journals, the sustained dedicated efforts of members of the Academy of American Poets, or bloggers content just to have a platform where they could post lines at will, poetry has maintained a dynamic living breathing presence in the world.

Despite the cacophony of bombs and bullets which so often drown out the music of laughter (or possibly because of them) poetry at this point in history may very well be more commanding than any other previous time. There are many reasons to believe its potency, and its beauty, shall grow even stronger in the future.

Aberjhani
© National Poetry Month 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

2016 National Poetry Month poster featuring a florilegium with text excerpted from poems by diverse classic and contemporary poets. The poster was designed by Debbie Millman and produced by Emily Weiland. NPM16

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Reflecting on the Year 2016 and stepping not-too-boldly into 2017 (part 1 of 2)

Year 2016 Bright Skylark Table of Contents

Ripples of Political Pandemonium

Video Notes on Barack Obama: Giving an American President His Proper Due

Remembrance and Gratitude

Muhammad Ali: 10 Ways to Interpret One Man's Radiant Heart

Of Saints and Athletes

A Curative Force of Genuine Love

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore's Unwavering Optimism (part 2 of 2)

Speaking of the North Pole

The Number 1 Risk to the Global Economy

The Exciting News

An Answer in 3 Parts

To Quote Poet Wallace Stevens

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

An Open Sewer

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

This Has Consequences

Systemic Causation

Sustaining the Sweet Joyful Howl of Poetry in the 21st Century

Of Bloggers and Nobel Laureates

A Movement Designed to Inspire

Despite the Cacophony

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Reflecting on the Year 2016 and stepping not-too-boldly into 2017 (part 1 of 2)

Year 2016 Bright Skylark Table of Contents

Ripples of Political Pandemonium

Video Notes on Barack Obama: Giving an American President His Proper Due

Remembrance and Gratitude

Muhammad Ali: 10 Ways to Interpret One Man's Radiant Heart

Of Saints and Athletes

A Curative Force of Genuine Love

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore's Unwavering Optimism (part 2 of 2)

Speaking of the North Pole

The Number 1 Risk to the Global Economy

The Exciting News

An Answer in 3 Parts

To Quote Poet Wallace Stevens

Presenting a Poem for the Earth and Al Gore’s Unwavering Optimism (Part 1 of 2)

The Earth in Rapture, Our Earth

​Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope

An Open Sewer

Let’s Look at the Atmosphere

This Has Consequences

Systemic Causation

Sustaining the Sweet Joyful Howl of Poetry in the 21st Century

Of Bloggers and Nobel Laureates

A Movement Designed to Inspire

Despite the Cacophony

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Transcript of Al Gore's Case for Maintaining Hope