 "COVID-19 and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah" Chromatic Poetics art graphic by Aberjhani. A loud collective gasp of disbelief was almost as tangible as it was audible when Savannah’s Mayor Van Johnson II announced March 10, 2020, he and other city leaders had opted to follow the example of those in other major cities around the world––Dublin, New York, and Boston among them––and cancel the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Festival due to concerns over the COVID-19 virus. The St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Savannah is generally considered one of the largest in the world and anywhere from half a million to more than a million visitors usually crowd the city’s downtown Historic District to join the festivities. The economic boost from the event is substantial and for many businesses operating in the downtown area it represents their first-quarter Black Friday. Economic gain, however, is only advantageous if one is alive to enjoy it. With the World Health Organization reclassifying what started out as the Coronavirus epidemic as a full-blown pandemic, Mayor Johnson reached the same conclusion others did: “We must put the health, wealth, and safety of our citizens first.”
The Power of ResilienceThe ability of citizens of Savannah to bounce back from major disasters is a primary inspiration behind the title of the book Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. The word Immortal of course is a hyperbolic description meant to honor citizens’ collective spirit of resilience demonstrated over the centuries. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been an annual guaranteed good time with only half a dozen cancellations since its establishment in 1824, almost 200 years ago, so resilience is something on which citizens are relying heavily at this time. COVID-19 might be a new version of age-old plagues which have struck humanity from time to time but, throughout the 1800s, Savannahians had to deal with a succession of devastating “yellow fever” epidemics. Caused by virus-transporting mosquitoes originally found in Africa, the disease took the lives of: 4,000 people between 1807 and 1820; 580 people in 1854; and 1,066 in 1876.
 The more apparent existential threat to the city in modern times has come from seemingly more intense and more frequent hurricanes often attributed to climate change. Readers have gotten a powerful sense of what that means from the story “Trees Down Everywhere” published in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. Where COVID-19 is concerned, they might draw some encouragement from these words from the introduction: “Almost 300 years after a succession of wars, hurricanes, plagues, fires, migrations, and the Emancipation Proclamation, [James] Oglethorpe’s original basic physical design of the colony has proven enduring even while the city as a whole has morphed into a cosmopolitan center of commerce, diverse demographics, cultural arts, military facilities, and scientific research dedicated to preserving the surrounding natural environment as well as further developing means to leave earth’s boundaries altogether. Consequently, if he were able to see his masterful cityscape as it stands now, the founder might very well, as some have suggested, recognize it based on his plan. But he would also have to make some serious adjustments in regard to how society itself has evolved…” Such an adjustment unquestionably would represent a very difficult challenge for the state of Georgia’s founder. Very difficult. But it is easy to imagine he would somehow manage to rise to the occasion and meet that challenge. Rising to the occasion the meet the deadly challenge of COVID-19 is really the only option Savannahians and humanity as a whole have at this moment in history. It’s good to know we possess the capability to do exactly that. Aberjhani©March 2020
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 Because original versions of artwork included in the international first edition of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah remained available for sale throughout process of publishing the book, there was some doubt about whether they should be listed in the Table of Contents. They are properly identified at the beginning of corresponding chapters but to further augment readers' experience of the connection between the book and its collectible illustrations, links to the original versions are included below in the enhanced Table of Contents. When clicking the link to art on Dr. Abigail Jordan it will become apparent that the book illustration is a black and white detail of a much larger original. Moreover, the sole non-original exception to the listed artworks is a cartoon employed at the beginning of the story titled 'Riding the Bus with Man-Boy and Shaniquananda: And Then Not.' The cartoon is borrowed from a now defunct 1949 publication known as Riders Reader.
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After pre-selling on Amazon for only one week, Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah landed at number 4 on Goodreads page of Popular Literary Memoir Books, just behind: "Night" by Elie Wiesel, "Girl, Interrupted" by Susanna Kaysen, and "Holidays on Ice" by David Sedaris.
The various works with the late great artist Luther E. Vann, particularly ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, are fairly well-known. For its blending of visual fine art and poetry by two creatives, ELEMENTAL continues to stand as an exceptional tribute to creative energies and individuals which made the Harlem Renaissance such an exciting political and cultural arts phenomenon.
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Some, however, might be surprised to learn Vann’s art also adorned the covers of several more of my books, including: the poetry collection The Bridge of Silver Wings; and, the novels Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World, and Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player. In Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, Vann’s aesthetic relationship with the artists Claude Monet and Kahlil Gibran is explored in story titled “Monet, Vann, and Gibran at the Telfair Museum of Art.” The following is a short excerpt from the story:
“When considering how the practices of slavery, philanthropy, and rebellion could all converge behind the exquisitely-rendered doors of the Telfair Museum, it becomes less difficult to imagine the different implications of it housing works by artists as diverse as France’s Claude Monet (Nov 14, 1840 – Dec 5 1926), America’s Luther E. Vann (Dec 2, 1937-April 6, 2016), and Lebanon’s Kahlil Gibran (Jan 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931)... There is a kind of unrecognized kinship between their painted meditations on the layered realities of human existence and the ever-unfolding wonders of time’s relationship with space, and light’s eternal dance with shadows and hues.” (from Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah)
The above reference to “practices of slavery” (hopefully obviously) should not be taken as allusion to those associated with today’s Telfair Museums of Art. It refers rather to past practices which made possible the foundation upon which the museum was founded. It is nevertheless painfully relevant to our modern times because of the current pandemic of human trafficking. That makes the work and function of the modern Telfair Museums, which often bridges cultural divides and celebrates human diversity, all the more essential.
Aberjhani
100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
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The month of April, with flowers blooming after a frozen winter and people enjoying outdoor weddings and other activities, tends to be a favorite time for many. It is a special month for Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah because two of the principal figures in the book, civil rights advocate Vanda Trappio Patton and metaphysical artist Luther E. Vann, both passed away two years apart on April 6.
April 2019 will mark the first anniversary of Patton’s death and the third of Vann’s. Both were former members of the onlineCreative Thinkers International Initiative.
April 2019 will mark the first anniversary of Patton’s death and the third of Vann’s. Both were former members of the onlineCreative Thinkers International Initiative.
Trees Down Everywhere
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In addition to being one of three individuals to whom Dreams of the Immortal City is dedicated, Ms. Patton is also a central figure in “Trees Down Everywhere,” the third story in DREAMS. In the story, readers meet her as elderly matriarch reluctant to leave her historic Victorian home even though Hurricane Matthew is moving steadily toward Southeast Georgia and threatening a direct hit against Savannah. This is a brief synopsis of the story:
“Following announcements of life-threatening hurricanes likely to directly strike Savannah, residents and tourists alike have often commented on how fortunate the ‘immortal city’ has been to defy these predictions. However, though nearly all agree it could have been much worse than it turned out to be, with Hurricane Matthew the luck ran out in 2016. Throughout the night when Matthew hits, the narrator struggles to prevent a friend’s house from flooding and the next day walks through city parks photographing uprooted trees. In addition, he shares what it was like to experience the psychic pressure of dealing with the hurricane while simultaneously…”
Ms. Patton’s choice and how it impacts all involved (including her recently-deceased son Moses Trappio III) makes for a compelling narrative to which many hurricane survivors around the world can relate. Her story is also one of the primary examples of how and why Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah is proving appealing as regional and world literature.
NEXT: The Month of April and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (part 2)
Aberjhani
100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
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About the Author:
A passionate reader, committed writer, artist, photographer, dedicated practitioner of mindfulness, hurricane survivor, maker of poems, believer in the value of compassion, historian, award-winner, journalist, adherent of beauty, and student of wisdom.
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