Bright Skylark Literary Productions
  • Author Statement
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Goodreads Author Widget
        • Editing Credits
        • ELEMENTAL: The Power of Illuminated Love (Art and Poetry Gift Book)
        • The River of Winged Dreams
        • The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois
        • Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World: A Novel by Aberjhani
        • I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
        • Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
        • Buy Books by Aberjhani on Amazon
        • 10th Anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel
    • Aberjhani - Author Biography
    • Awards & Honors
    • Aberjhani Portfolio Sampler
    • Michael Jackson Tribute Portrait VIP Dot
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • Blog: Visionary Vibes
    • Twitter Tweets & News Notes >
      • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style >
      • Postered Poetics
    • Blog: Literary Persuasion Book Reviews
    • Blog: Sonic Delight Music Reviews >
      • Summer-Song Rhapsody for Michael Jackson: Editorial with Poem
    • Shifting Points of View and the Massacre in Charleston, South Carolina (USA)
    • 7 Ways to Help Replace Legislated Fear with Informed Compassion
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Quotations
    • Pinterest Page of Quotations
  • Charter for a More Compassionate World
  • As a Poet Thinketh
    • The Bridge of Silver Wings
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao by Aberjhani
    • Ode to the Good Black Boots that Served My Soul So Well (poem by Aberjhani)
    • Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao: Verse 1
  • Articles and Essays
    • Abbreviated Minds in the News for Wreaking Havoc Worldwide editorial by Aberjhani
    • Iconic Authors Toni Morrison's and Harper Lee's New Works Likely to Influence Dialogues on Race
    • Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem ‘If We Must Die’” part 1 of special 4-part series by Aberjhani
    • A Writer's Journey to Selma, Alabama
    • Justice Remains Elusive in Case of Newly-freed Louis C. Taylor (Part 1 of 2)
    • Sensualized Transcendence: Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts (Part 1)
    • Realms of Emerging Light (Sensualized Transcendence Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts Part 2)
    • Notes on the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
    • Why Race Mattered in Barack Obama's Re-Election: Editorial and Poem
    • Posted Perspectives on America's 2012 Presidential Election
    • 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization: Dreamers and Nightmares
    • Considering Michael Clarke Duncan: Big Black Man Within A Nonsociopoliticohistorical Context (Editorial with Poem)
  • Video Pen & Ink
  • Links and Connections
    • Aberjhani's Guerrilla Decontextualization
  • Contact the Author

​Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah

​A memoir of what happens when the heart and soul of a historic city meet the art and purpose of a 21st-century advocate for compassion and social justice.

Balancing Our Love for Humanity with Our Passion for Technology

5/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Despite all the benefits which modern technology has made possible for humanity to enjoy in the 21st century, many have observed that in some ways on certain days we seem to be taking more steps backward than forward. News reports and film documentaries contrasting volatile social and political conditions in the United States during the 1960s, for example, often point out similarities between the two eras when it comes to racial oppression and gender inequality.
​
At the same time, various present-day technological triumphs are undeniable. One of the greatest  is that of the telephone, which has evolved from a shoe-box-sized two-piece device used solely for voice communication to a single hand-held unit capable of functioning as a camera or miniature computer. 

​Riding the Bus with Man-Boy and Shaniquananda: And Then Not

​The sixth story in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, titled "Riding the Bus with Man-Boy and Shaniquananda: And Then Not." It presents readers with a partly-humorous and somewhat serious study of how well we are learning (or not learning) different lessons taught by history when it comes to personal behavior in public places and how technology impacts such behavior. This is the synopsis for it:
"It is not news that technology and innovation continue to impact our personal and public lives in unexpected ways. How that observation plays out proves a matter of some concern when a passenger compares riding the public bus system in Savannah both prior to the opening of a new transportation hub in 2013 and afterwards. In addition, the narrator ponders what it must feel like for a group of elderly African-American women, who decades ago fought for the right to sit at the front of the bus, to listen to Black Millennials Shaniquananda and Man-boy seated further back loudly discussing on cell phones intimate details of their sex lives." 

​Interestingly, this story was inspired in part by Luther E. Vann's great painting, "Christ Listening to Stereo," featured in the book ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. For that painting, Vann sought to capture the essence of a young couple on a bus in New York City. Armed with headphones, they shut out surrounding distractions and appeared immersed in a world of private tranquility, thus the title of the painting. It makes for a strong study in contrasts when set beside "Riding the Bus with Man-Boy and Shaniquananda."
 
Aberjhani
C2019 Harlem Renaissance Centennial
Sell Art Online
0 Comments

Hans Rosling’s Factfulness and the Search for Compassion Behind the Numbers Part 1

5/17/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
The funny thing about my response to Hans Rosling’s brilliantly innovative book, Factfulness, is I purchased it while completing revisions of my own book: Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. However, I then promptly set it aside until Dreams was in the hands of my publisher and well on its way to the printer.

Given Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s exceptional endorsement Factfulness (co-authored by Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund), there was little reason to doubt its examination of “Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" was fully worth my committed attention. The cautiousness I felt stemmed mostly from concern the Factfulness in question might be overloaded with an excess of data and abstract theories while ignoring the intent behind my own work.
​
The journalist in me always welcomes insightful research anchored by documented trends. The poet in me welcomes even more strategies and proposed solutions informed by compassion plus analytical insight. Therefore, acknowledging the hearts and souls that give often-referenced numbers their significance means a lot to me. 

Developing a New Perspective

Doubt and apprehensiveness lingered throughout my reading of the first chapter on “The Gap Instinct.” I accepted easily enough Rosling’s proposal that for purposes of public discourse we should do away with the term “developing countries” and instead adopt language suitable for “sorting countries" into 4 income levels. Level 1 would be home to the most impoverished and Level 4 comfortably occupied by the wealthiest. Levels 2 and 3 could be considered the international middle classes.
​
Upon reading the following, the only thing I could do was smile: “Since you are reading this book, I’m pretty sure you live on Level 4” (p. 37). In fact, at this specific point in my life, I'm nowhere near it. But just by reading the book, it would seem, I at least possess Level 4 instincts, or qualities, and have adopted practices which may yet elevate my economic status. 
Sell Art Online
Rosling’s notion, nevertheless, appealed to me. Factfulness essentially provides us with a framework and set of lens through which to view and assess the evolving realities of nations and individuals. Moreover, how could anyone not admire the depth to which the good doctor's reasoning was by informed by his many years of service to humanity? Given my passion for real-life historical literary heroes who, somehow, managed to beat the odds against them in order to produce compelling classic works, I had to admit he just might belong on the same level as those very heroes. He had, after all, devoted his final breaths to completing it.

Instinct & Realization

​Going from one chapter to the next, Rosling points out how our worldviews may be distorted by 10 factors, or tendencies, categorized as follows: the Gap instinct, Negativity, Straight Line, Fear, Size, Generalization, Destiny, Single, Blame, and Urgency. What astonished me was how often he presented stories of himself giving in to these instincts. In one such account, by way of demonstrating the Fear Instinct, he mistakes a Swedish pilot for a potential Russian fighter pilot and almost needlessly destroys an expensive air force G-suit to treat him. 
In another, illustrating the Urgency Instinct, he endorses a suggestion to prevent the spread of a contagious disease in Nacala, Mozambique, by setting up a military roadblock to prevent buses from entering the area. The result is one of unexpected deadly consequences. The unreserved humility with which this world-class educator and medical researcher shares his hard-won lessons is admirable. Although humanity's capacity for compassion IS not been included as  a resource for making "things" better, and the word compassion does not appear in the index of Factfulness, the various elements of which is is comprises--like empathy, mindfulness, forgiveness--are evident enough.

Necessity & Recognition

The need to confront and learn from mistakes, combined with the compassion often required to accomplish precisely that, is a major theme which runs throughout the text and art of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. Some of the errors examined I considered my own. Some I did not. All required adapting to the demands of reevaluation and change.

The story "Trees Down Everywhere," for example, presents a meditation on the consequences of denying the realities of climate change. It further considers the necessity to exercise compassion not just for people currently suffering the consequences of it and for "future generations," but for the Earth itself.
​
In addition: “The Bridge and the Monument: A Tale of Two Legacies” contrasts the racially-inclusive social vision of the late Dr. Abigail H. Jordan with the racially-oppressive politics of former Georgia (USA) governor Eugene Talmadge. (Included in the appendices are statements are statements on community efforts to change the name of the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge spanning the Savannah River.)
Picture
The title story looks at how the horrors of human trafficking exemplified by America's historic Civil War continue to haunt world populations in 2019. It further suggests how exercising compassion and forgiveness toward an unexpected population segment impacted by the war could play a significant role in finally healing from it. Anyone questioning the relevance of such an observation need only recognize calls for reparations for the descendants of Blacks who toiled in slavery in America for centuries continue to increase as the 2020 election for the next U.S. president grows closer.    

Other stories in Dreams, "Like A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Savannah" and "Savannah by the Twenty-first Century Numbers" look at ways a sense of compassion informs our approaches to such issues as immigration, caregiving, the historic impact of demographic shifts, dynamics of inter-generational interactions, and embracing diversity.

NEXT
: Hans Rosling’s Factfulness and the Search for Compassion Behind the Numbers Part 2

Aberjhani

Contact author and artist Aberjhani

Submit
0 Comments

Enhanced Table of Contents for Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah

4/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.  

Enhanced Table of Contents for
Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • City of Lights-Kaleidoscope Moon for Children Gone Too Soon #6
  • Cities of Lights and Shadows and Dreams
  • Flowers and Wings for Her Tears and Years
  • A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Savannah
  • Forsyth Park Confederate Monument in Savannah the Morning after
  • Hurricane Matthew
  • Trees down Everywhere
  • Owens-Thomas House in Savannah, Georgia
  • Dreams of the Immortal City
  • B&W Digital Watercolor of Dr. Abigail Jordan
  • The Bridge and the Monument: a Tale of Two Legacies
  • Cartoon from Riders Reader
  • Riding the Bus with Man-Boy and Shaniquananda: And Then Not 113
  • That Time We Woke Up Laughing in Claude Monet’s Garden
  • Monet, Vann, and Gibran at the Telfair Museum of Art
  • Savannah by the Twenty-first Century Numbers
  • Appendices
  • Appendix A: 2016 Statement on Eugene Talmadge Bridge
  • Appendix B: 2017 Statement on Eugene Talmadge Bridge
  • Appendix C: Savannah Community Marks 100th Anniversary
  • Appendix D: A Legacy Less Traveled
  • Appendix E: A Place Called Hitch Village

​Aberjhani
29 April, 2019

    Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani

Submit
0 Comments

A Brief Consideration of Dreams and the Countdown to May 1, 2019

4/18/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Artwork titled “Owens-Thomas House in Savannah Georgia Number 2” by Aberjhani featuring quote from the book Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah.
Dreams comprise one of the great mysteries of what it means to call ourselves human. On one level of consciousness or another, we all have them. The point is one worth pondering as readers count down to the scheduled publication of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah on May 1, 2019.

Some experience dreams as waves of imagination which light up our sleep with unusual images or suggestive narratives that fill us with curiosity, doubts, desires, fears, or inspiration. There are also those who consider dreams in more purpose-driven terms: as in concrete aspirations, hopes, or goals.
​
Historical figures like France’s Joan of Arc, Native-American Chief Sitting Bull, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, abolitionist Harriet Tubman, entrepreneur Madame C.J. Walker, and scientist Albert Einstein all experienced dreams, in some cases referred to as visions, which impacted the course of history. Literary icons such as novelist Mary Shelly and Italian poet Dante Alighieri--not to mention more contemporary creatives like musician Paul McCartney--also experienced dreams which heavily influenced some of their most famous works. And then there was the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh who gave us these words: “I dream my paintings, then I paint my dreams.”

Story Synopsis: Putting a History-Making Dream
​in Context

​The title story in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, as with the book as a whole, presents readers with multiple experiences of a single city interpreted as different kinds of dreams. It may be a dream of home, of historical changes, future possibilities, or present-day challenges. One crucial question permeating the pages of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah is this: How does James Oglethorpe’s (founder of America's state of Georgia) historic dream of what Savannah might become compare to the hopes and needs of people occupying the city in 2019? The following synopsis suggests a partial answer in the context of the noted story:   
Picture
Telfair Musem Owens-Thomas House on cover of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (Cyberwith.net Publishing) by Aberjhani.
The phrase “Immortal City” as used in this chapter is borrowed from the title of the first volume of the four-book Civil War Savannah Series (by historian Barry Sheehy, photographer Cindy Wallace, and historian Vaughnette Goode-Walker) which in 2011 was published in commemoration of the American Civil War sesquicentennial.

The story intertwines the history of the groundbreaking volume with the author’s experience of a dream he had twenty years before and which he believes foretold the publication of the book series. More than that, his dream, along with actual work on the book series as an editor, and the books themselves provide a framework for a passionate discussion on current pressing issues. In addition to examining the persistence of human trafficking in Savannah and the world, the author is surprised by a discovery of compassion for people he had previously only thought of as evil.


​Possibly the most important function served by dreams is that during periods of social, political, or personal stagnation, they can provide the catalyst for continued progressive movement forward. It was what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream did for America at a time when the developing practices of democracy were stalled by racism, gender inequality, class prejudice, and other forms of social injustice. It is what the innovative visions of diverse creative thinkers around the world may be doing for humanity right now.
​
Aberjhani
​Harlem Renaissance Centennial

    Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani

Submit
0 Comments

The Month of April and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (part 2)

4/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
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. 
Photography Prints
​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

Contact the Author-Artist

Submit
0 Comments

The Month of April and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (part 1)

4/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Art Prints
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. 

Trees Down Everywhere

​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

Contact the Author-Artist

Submit
0 Comments

Maybe temperance plus compassion equals the real meaning of family

3/27/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (ISBN ISBN 978-9388125956) by Aberjhani: A memoir of what happens when the heart & soul of a city meet the art & purpose of a 21st-century advocate for compassion & social justice.
​The second epigraph at the beginning of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah comes from a contemporary and friend of Nobel Prize for Literature winner Albert Camus (1913-1960), the French poet Rene Char (1907-1988):
"On our temperate side we have a series of songs in us, guarding us, wings of communication between our calm breath and our highest fevers..."
(R. Char from Put on Guard)

​​The hope to establish a balance between temperance and its opposite, heedlessness or chaos, so that a "series of songs" may flow unimpeded, is an important theme in "A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Georgia," the second story in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (ISBN 978-9388125956). In fact, the story might also have borrowed from Char's quote the phrase "Between Our Calm Breath and Our Highest Fevers" for an alternate title. This is the synopsis for it:
"One Thanksgiving holiday when people all over the country are gathering with family members to enjoy a good meal and each other’s company, the narrator makes peace with the fact that his estrangement from certain relatives will make the occasion a challenging one: for the widowed family matriarch he looks after, and, for himself. Having already resolved to make the best of a sad situation, he is surprised by a visit from two friends, a brother and sister from Brazil. In addition to several boxes loaded with traditional Brazilian food, they bring with them much-needed inspiration." 

Determining the best strategies and practices when it comes to caring for aging populations is something impacting the lives of people around the world. While Traditional Elders may be the primary recipients of this care, Millennials, members of Generation X, and Baby Boomers are largely the ones charged with providing it. And members of Generation Z eventually will inherit the same responsibilities.

How well we accomplish the task before us with love and compassion or how miserably we fail has become one of the true 21st-century tests of what we like to call-- our humanity.

Aberjhani
100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance

Read More Blog-Notes on Dreams from the Immortal City Savannah:
  • Applying Dreams of the Immoral City Savannah to Modern Global Realities
  • A Story of Cities, Lights, and Dreams

    Contact the Author-Artist

Submit
0 Comments

A Story of Cities, Lights, and Dreams

2/27/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
"The realization of dreams, like every battle for freedom, has always required compromise to one degree or another. When the result of a concession, however, is the mutilation of your soul or the cancellation of someone else's future, then it may be said the desired goal was corrupted or destroyed rather than attained." –Aberjhani (from Dreams of the Immortal City)
​There are two quotes at the beginning of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah. This is the first, by the author and Catholic monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968):
“It is true that a person always remains a person and utterly separate and apart from every other person. But it is equally true that each person is destined to reach with others an understanding and a unity which transcend individuality…” (T. Merton from A Life in Letters)
​
​These wise and useful words from Merton illustrate one of the primary themes of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (Cyberwit.net Publishing) which is the necessity of individuals and social groups to reconcile themselves with one another to achieve sustainable peace and mutually-beneficial progress. Merton referred to that necessity as though it were/is an inevitability described as "an understanding and a unity."
 
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) called it "an inescapable network of mutuality" and the "inter-related structure of reality.” I have tended, for some years now, to think of it as a convergence of historical confluences which either align the priorities of individuals and societies with historical trends or place them in conflict with the same.

Navigating the Dynamics

​Living in the 21st century means mindfully deciding exactly how one fits into such ideological configurations. That is also about the way it was when Dr. King and Merton were formulating their conclusions during the 1960s. And It is what we see in the pages of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah as people navigate the dynamics of such issues as: personal conduct in public places, assessing the value of long-held cultural traditions in a world of rapidly-evolving multiracial demographics, and maintaining a healthy sense of self within environments made toxic by factors like greed, xenophobia, demagoguery, and other debilitating regressions. 
Photography Prints
A good example of the invigorating challenge before us is "Cities of Lights and Shadows and Dreams," the very first story in the book. It is described in the following synopsis:
 
One of the great compromises people sometimes have to make in life is accepting that plans do not always work out as preferred. In Cities of Lights and Shadows and Dreams, the author becomes preoccupied by a strange false memory of being in Paris, France, just after World War II, a time when a number of African Americans had made their way to The City of Lights. Tears in the fabric of this memory allow him to see himself in another later time in his hometown of Savannah where he talks with singer India Arie and others about the visit to Paris but which in fact has never taken place.
 
The story introduces the parallel themes of displacement, expatriation, attempted escape from painful conflict, and unavoidable return as the narrator imagines what it was like for author Richard Wright (Native Son, Black Boy) upon his arrival in Paris and struggles to make peace with the reality of his actual life in a very different time and place.
 
Or we can look at it this way: journeys and destinations are not one and the same. The first has to be engaged with a great deal of committed flexibility and enthusiastic perseverance before the other can be enjoyed with any amount of secured satisfaction whatsoever.
 
Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush ArtStyle

  
0 Comments

Applying Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah to Modern Global Realities

2/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
DREAMS OF THE IMMORTAL CITY SAVANNAH: A memoir of what happens when the heart and soul of a historic city meet the art and purpose of a 21st-century advocate for compassion and social justice. (Art graphic by Postered Chromatic Poetics for Bright Skylark Literary Productions)
The precise genesis of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, now scheduled for publication by Cyberwit.net in spring of 2019, is an actual dream and its eventual realization as described in the title story. The purpose of this blog and the posts which follow is to explore the impulses, values, and diverse social, political, emotional, and spiritual factors that gave rise to the dream which in time became the book. 

Gift of Redeemed Integrity 

​The note below composed in 2013 provides some indication of what those were. It might also give some clues about what many others trekking from country to country and continent to continent --think immigrants, social justice advocates, victims of human trafficking, seekers of love and beauty--are grappling with in 2019:
I had spent many years staying as far away as I could avoiding a city that I associated more with fear, grief, and pain than I did with love or joy. It is no secret that we have first to claim the injuries that antagonize us before we can release the suffering caused by them. Claiming my own was further compounded by newer challenges that continued to pile up in real-time. These too had to be endured, rejected, screamed about and cried over, confronted, and then finally claimed before healing growth could take place.

For a century and a half, my city––and my country––had been like me. They had tried––like me––to avoid pain at all conceivable costs. Not only did this prove, in the end, impossible, but neither was it (as one finally realized) at all desirable.
​

Terror can sometimes surprise us by eventually revealing itself as a gateway to beauty, just as ineluctable destiny can––sometimes––unlock doors to freedom. Very possibly, more than the transformative grace it can bring to your own life is the gift of redeemed integrity it can present to the lives––and deaths––of many others.

I like the phrase 'gift of redeemed integrity' from the previous sentence because for those struggling with adverse circumstances it reaffirms the all-important value of "keeping your eyes on the prize." That kind of focus can be difficult to maintain during chaotic times in tumultuous environments. Daring to believe it was even possible to do so played a major role in constructing for readers over the period of a decade the writings and visual art presented in the pages of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah.

Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush ArtStyle

0 Comments

    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. 

    Archives

    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019

    Categories

    All
    100th Anniversary Of The Harlem Renaissance
    2019
    2019 Events
    2019 New Book Releases
    2019 Spring Reading
    2019 Summer Reading
    Advocacy
    African American Artists
    African-American Artists
    African American Authors
    African-American Authors
    Art By Aberjhani
    Art For Sale
    Author Quotes
    Author Richard Wright
    Autobiography
    Bill Gates
    Black Authors Born In Savannah Georgia
    Black Authors Born In Savannah-Georgia
    Blogs By Aberjhani
    Book News
    Books By Aberjhani
    Books By Hans Rosling
    Celebrity Deaths
    Climate Change
    Contemporary Art
    Contemporary Historians
    Contemporary History
    Contemporary Literature
    Contemporary Southern Literature
    Countdown
    Cyberwit.net
    Dreams
    Dreams Of The Immortal City Savannah
    Encyclopedia Of The Harlem Renaissance
    Essays On Art
    Essays On Art And Literature
    Essays On Literature
    Ethics
    Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge
    Famous Dreamers
    Famous Dreams
    Fine Art
    Generational
    Georgia Authors
    Georgia Stories
    Global Warming
    Harlem Renaissance
    Historic Homes In Savannah Georgia
    Human Trafficking
    Hurricane Season
    Indigenous African Americans Of Savannah Georgia
    Indigenous African Americans Of Savannah-Georgia
    Juneteenth Reading
    Literary Events
    Literary History
    Literary Memoir
    Literary Quotes
    Literature Of Commitment
    Martin Luther King Jr.
    May 1
    Memoir
    Moses Trappio III
    National History Day
    Natives Of Savannah Georgia
    Natives Of Savannah-Georgia
    New Art By Aberjhani
    New Books By Aberjhani
    New World Writing
    Nobel Laureate
    Nobel Laureate Albert Camus
    Owens Thomas House Savannah Georgia
    Owens-Thomas House Savannah-Georgia
    Owens-Thomas House Video
    Paris France
    Paris-France
    Poet Rene Char
    Poster Art
    Public Behavior
    Public Transportation
    Publishing
    Quotation Art
    Quotes By Aberjhani
    Quotes By Albert Camus
    Quotes By Martin Luther King Jr.
    Quotes By Rene Char
    Quotes By Thomas Merton
    Riding Buses
    Savannah Georgia
    Savannah-Georgia
    Savannah Stories
    Slavery
    Stories Out Of Georgia
    Swedish Authors
    Telfair Museum Owens Thomas House
    Telfair Museum Owens-Thomas House
    Thomas Merton
    Trappio Family
    Vanda Trappio Patton
    Writers Born In Savannah Georgia
    Writers Born In Savannah-Georgia

    RSS Feed

      CONTACT THE AUTHOR

    Submit
  • Author Statement
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Goodreads Author Widget
        • Editing Credits
        • ELEMENTAL: The Power of Illuminated Love (Art and Poetry Gift Book)
        • The River of Winged Dreams
        • The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois
        • Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World: A Novel by Aberjhani
        • I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
        • Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
        • Buy Books by Aberjhani on Amazon
        • 10th Anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel
    • Aberjhani - Author Biography
    • Awards & Honors
    • Aberjhani Portfolio Sampler
    • Michael Jackson Tribute Portrait VIP Dot
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • Blog: Visionary Vibes
    • Twitter Tweets & News Notes >
      • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style >
      • Postered Poetics
    • Blog: Literary Persuasion Book Reviews
    • Blog: Sonic Delight Music Reviews >
      • Summer-Song Rhapsody for Michael Jackson: Editorial with Poem
    • Shifting Points of View and the Massacre in Charleston, South Carolina (USA)
    • 7 Ways to Help Replace Legislated Fear with Informed Compassion
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Quotations
    • Pinterest Page of Quotations
  • Charter for a More Compassionate World
  • As a Poet Thinketh
    • The Bridge of Silver Wings
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao by Aberjhani
    • Ode to the Good Black Boots that Served My Soul So Well (poem by Aberjhani)
    • Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao: Verse 1
  • Articles and Essays
    • Abbreviated Minds in the News for Wreaking Havoc Worldwide editorial by Aberjhani
    • Iconic Authors Toni Morrison's and Harper Lee's New Works Likely to Influence Dialogues on Race
    • Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem ‘If We Must Die’” part 1 of special 4-part series by Aberjhani
    • A Writer's Journey to Selma, Alabama
    • Justice Remains Elusive in Case of Newly-freed Louis C. Taylor (Part 1 of 2)
    • Sensualized Transcendence: Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts (Part 1)
    • Realms of Emerging Light (Sensualized Transcendence Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts Part 2)
    • Notes on the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
    • Why Race Mattered in Barack Obama's Re-Election: Editorial and Poem
    • Posted Perspectives on America's 2012 Presidential Election
    • 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization: Dreamers and Nightmares
    • Considering Michael Clarke Duncan: Big Black Man Within A Nonsociopoliticohistorical Context (Editorial with Poem)
  • Video Pen & Ink
  • Links and Connections
    • Aberjhani's Guerrilla Decontextualization
  • Contact the Author