East St. Louis, IL--Dr. Lena Jane Weathers (1930-2017), who was a lifelong resident of East St. Louis and an invaluable leader and patron of the community, will be honored along with four more late women trustees of the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. The free event, held in honor of Women's History Month 2017, will take place 6 PM in Room 2083 of Building “B” on the East St. Louis Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (ESL SIUE) Higher Education Campus, 601 J.R. Thompson Drive 62201. Other trustee-honorees are poet-novelist-scholar Margaret Walker Alexander (1915-1998); poet-autobiographer-actress-filmmaker Maya Angelou (1928-2014); Pulitzer Prize-winning former Illinois Poet Laureate and novelist Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000); and ESL native daughter Barbara Ann Teer (1937-2008), founder of the National Black Theatre of Harlem. June 17, 2017 will mark the centennial of the birth of Brooks. She and Walker Alexander, whose centennial was observed in 2015, are often associated with the Harlem Renaissance. EBR Writers Club HistoryFounded in 1986, the Writers Club turned 30 in 2016. Writer Henry Lee Dumas (a.k.a. Henry Dumas, 1934-1968), for whom Eugene B. Redmond has served as literary executor for the past 48 years, is the Club's patron saint. Members of its Soular Systems Ensemble—Roscoe “Ros” Crenshaw, Salim Kenyatta, Charlois Lumpkin (Mali Newman), Darlene Roy (Club prez), and Jaye Willis—will perform “kwansabas” in honor of the trustees. The program will also feature special guests and an art/photo exhibit. Current Club trustees include: Avery Brooks, Haki R. Madhubuti, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Among other deceased trustees are: Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) and Raymond R. Patterson (1929-2002). In addition to having appeared here as guests of the Club, trustees also served on the editorial board of Drumvoices Revue, a literary-cultural journal formerly co-published by the Club and SIUE's English Department. Creation of the KwansabaOne of the Club's signature inventions is the “kwansaba,” a poem of “sevens”--seven lines, seven words per line, with each word having no more than seven letters. Exceptions to the seven-letter rule are foreign terms, proper nouns and quoted words or passages. Of the trustees, Dr. Weathers and Dr. Ward have written kwansabas. Others have been the subject of special issues of Drumvoices where they were honored with kwansabas. Hundreds of examples of the form appear in Drumvoices and dozens of other publications. In the past couple of years alone, three volumes of poetry--by Tara Betts, Treasure Shields Redmond, and Darlene Roy—have been devoted wholly or in part to the kwansaba. For information about the March 21 program or the Club: call 618 650-3991; write EBR Writers Club at P.O. Box 6165, ESL, IL 62201; or email: eredmon@siue.edu. AuthorPress Release courtesy of EBR Writers Group
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May 29, 2016, marks the 8th anniversary of the publication of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love, which made its public debut at the Telfair Museum Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia (USA). In honor of that event and as a tribute to the one-of-a-kind ekphrasis book’s co-creator, the late Luther E. Vann, a 3-part essay series has been posted in author Aberjhani’s national cultural arts column hosted on the Anschutz Company’s Digital Clarity Group Examiner platform. The first installment of the essay features a video on the collection of African-American art housed at the Telfair Museum and Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah. The second part includes a video of contemporary African-American artists discussing the different racial and professional barriers they had to overcome while developing their craftsmanship. The third presents footage on the life and music of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, whose creative aesthetics inspired Vann in his pursuits. Lastly, posted with each installment is an original Postered Poetics art title graphic by Aberjhani. Each art graphic is representative of different aspects of Vann’s creative strategies and practices. Readers can enjoy the separate installments, such the third featured at the top of this post, or the first or second below, by clicking on the corresponding image: One of the top stories of 2015 was when when the internationally-acclaimed artist Luther E. Vann won the Telfair Museum Juneteenth Artist of the Year Award on June 13 at the Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia. The award was presented as part of the museum’s observation of the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth. The annual event is celebrated in communities throughout the United States in recognition of both the official end of slavery in America upon the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the date of June 19, 1865, when slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned for the first time that they had been freed two and a half years earlier. Cultural historian and tour guide Vaughnette Good-Walker, who has been organizing Juneteenth Jubilee celebrations in Savannah for nearly a decade, noted that it is particularly appropriate for residents of the city to participate in the celebrations. Savannah, she pointed out, is where Civil War General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 to offer newly-freed African Americans a form of reparation commonly referred to as “40 Acres and a Mule.” Goode-Walker might well have added that just a few blocks east of where she spoke was Wright Square, where sales of slaves used to take place every month in Savannah A Portrait of the Artist In her comments on why Vann was chosen as the Telfair Museum’s Juneteenth Artist of Year, Goode-Walker noted his innovative use of unconventional tools (such as chopsticks) to create some of his most striking paintings. “How many of you know artists who could pull that off?” she asked. Goode-Walker also pointed that Vann, who grew up in both Savannah and New York City, is among only a handful of living artists who studied his craft with such renowned Harlem Renaissance talents as Charles Alston and others of the famous period (now approaching its 100th anniversary). Following her own remarks, Goode-Walker turned the microphone over to members of the audience who wished to share personal stories about the impact of the artist’s work on their lives. Noted radio personality Ike Carter (of Savannah State University’s WHCJ radio station) told how Vann had expressed to him that one of the reasons he felt he could remain in Savannah, after moving back to the city in the early 1990s, was that he had heard Carter play music by the famed jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. Retired educator Julie Rittmeyer spoke of working with Vann on a quilting project for which the artist’s work was chosen for a special exhibition. While commenters shared stories about Vann, a power-point presentation of his work showed on the screen behind them. Most were from the artist’s book of visual works with ekphrastic poetry titled ELEMENTAL the Power of Illuminated Love. Among these were several canvases currently owned by the Telfair Museum of Art. In addition to those who spoke about Vann, distinguished audience members included fellow artist Amiri Geuka Farris (who was also on hand for a demonstration of his own notable genius) the celebrated percussionist David Pleasant, artist Suzanne Jackson, artist Jerome Meadows, cultural arts advocate Gwen Glover Starks, and numerous others. Vann himself, then 77, had been battling a persistent illness for the past two years and was unable to attend the award presentation. Jepson Center officials announced that for this reason they would deliver it after the program to his home in West Savannah. However, they did display the engraved crystal plaque long enough for the audience to view and take photos of it. Program Participants The complete Juneteenth celebration at the Jepson Center for the Arts lasted for a solid entertainment-filled three hours. Among the headliners was Mitchell G. Capel, also known as “Gran’Daddy Junebug,” celebrated for his powerful interpretations of poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar and for his original tribute poetry commemorating Barack Obama’s presidency. Cultural preservationist Queen Quet, acknowledged as the “Chieftess of the Gullah Geechee Nation,” performed a story of Juneteenth liberation in her native Gullah dialect. The director of Geechee Kunda, Jim Bacote, gave a presentation on the Geechee culture in the state of Georgia. And Dr. Amir Jamal Toure, known on stage as “The African Spirit” shared little-known historical facts about African Americans from Savannah who have made substantial contributions to local and national history.
2015 Bright Skylark Literary Productions |
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