Literary Persuasions: Book Reviews by Aberjhani

Lights, Cameras, and Poetry: On Evolving Cultures in Savannah, Georgia

2/12/2023

I thought about the poems and creative nonfiction in Patricia A. West’s book, Still Water Words (2020), for quite some time after seeing more and more film crews on different sites in Savannah, Georgia (USA). In 2022, I watched crews at work in the Benjamin Van Clark Neighborhood on the set for director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends. In early 2023, I observed technicians, actors, and grip trucks on a set for Ava Duvernay’s Origins project (based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book: Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents) not too far from the previous location.

The proliferation of movies shot in the city strikes me as confirmation of how much change the film industry has brought to the entire state of Georgia. That is particularly notable when observing how the modern high-tech cosmopolitan culture of the industry occasionally bumps against unflattering political and social attitudes and behaviors from the past.

Outdoor lighting specialists set up night-time floodlights for filming on a set for Halloween Ends in the historic Benjamin Van Clark neighborhood in Savannah, Georgia, USA. (Photo by Aberjhani)

Such was the case when segments of Wakanda Forever were filmed in the Mary Ross Waterfront Park in Brunswick at the same time (October 2021) the trial of three White men was getting underway for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, in the same city. It is also a strange kind of irony for visiting actors, directors, or producers who attempt to reconcile their enjoyment of a pleasurable evening in the Plant Riverside District with their confusion over the name of the beautiful bridge shimmering a short distance away.

Poetic Considerations

The writings in West’s Still Water Words, Poems and Stories from Ancestral places, on the other hand, bring us people and locations whose simple existences were major contributors to historic events so many now find useful to their creative and economic purposes. Through a double lens forged of pride in her Gullah Geechee heritage and of finely-honed literary craftsmanship, West delivers captivating portraits and tales of strivers, doers, family anchors, and customs. A retired Assistant Professor of English at Savannah State University, the task is one for which she is well equipped. For example, we learn in the oral history poem titled “One Day,” how elder cousin Richard West “knew secrets of the woods…”:

…If church was held after dark, they would
Swing a tightened, lighted lantern
To scare the snakes away.
Can’t you see him swinging that light high
to get the ol’ folks by?
Talking trash to the snakes in the woods?

In the poem “Stirring Culture in Those Cooking Pots: Savannah’s Alongshore Dinner Women,” she pulls back the curtain of herstory to acknowledge women who played an important role helping African-American longshoremen perform their demanding jobs during days of Jim Crow segregation. Because the men were not welcomed in any nearby White dining establishments, Black women often prepared full meals to sell on the docks:

The dinner women
were already stirring
culture in those
cooking pots, loading

food-filled pots, pans,
and dishes they
remembered from the
old people in Parker’s Ferry
to satisfy the wishes of hungry longshoremen.

They were men of might and muscles––
Lifting and carrying cargo along the docks,
Unloading goods to go onshore,
Building the shipping industry, boosting a coastal economy,

yet starving for respect…

Front cover of Still Water Words: Poems and Stories from Ancestral Places, by Patricia Ann West.

Inevitable change or predatory gentrification?

The erasure of Black history is something African Americans in Savannah have witnessed repeatedly on both large and small scales. One of the most often-cited instances is that of entire neighborhoods which were bulldozed in the early 1960s to make way for Interstate 16 and a flyover ramp (itself now targeted for removal). That decision forced the destruction of the Savannah Union Train Station on West Broad Street (now MLK Boulevard), recognized at the time as a central hub of businesses run by African Americans (primarily) and Jewish Americans in the area.

In addition to Union Central, entire neighborhoods like the legendary Frogtown and an assortment of once-thriving businesses were obliterated. As native Savannahian and Pulitzer Prize-winner James Alan McPherson recalled in his essay, Going Up to Atlanta: “There is not one house where I lived as a child still standing.”

Such destruction in the name of civic leaders’ definition of “progress” could, in some cases, be considered results of inevitable change. Others might justifiably be described as predatory gentrification. Poems like “13 Dundee” (p. 46) in Still Water Words rescue people and places from both potential fates:

                        Dancin’ down Dundee Lane!
                        Miz Theodosia recitin’ Dunbar on Waters at St. Paul
                        “When Malindy Sings”––
                        “The whole thing!”
                        We used to click-clack,
                        shoot marbles, losing then coming back…

The poet adds in a footnote: “The old Dundee Street home site is now the location of the Tiny House Project serving formerly homeless veterans and has been renamed The Cove at Dundee …”

Increasing Value of Remembrance

Two short creative nonfiction pieces––“Dear Carolina: A Letter of Memories” and “Mattie’s Time” (pp. 81-96)–– allow the author to “pay homage for days out in the country and across the bridge to South Carolina.” The book concludes with the poem “Come, Day Clean” (p. 102). The poem employs the Gullah declaration to invoke resilience in the face of various forms of injustice. It can, in some ways, be read as a vigorous spiritual response to Billie Holiday’s classic lament, “Strange Fruit,” in which southern trees have: “blood on the leaves and blood at the roots.” In fact, West categorizes her poem as “A Ntata- A Poetic Outcry.” Here are a few lines:

Come, day clean!
Over southern trees evergreen,
Rise up over us with new hopes;
Leave worry in last night’s dark and low.
Spread light over us lowly like a balm.
With laughter and lore, help our spirits calm…

Incorporated within the 102 pages which make up Still Water Words are more than a dozen images of people (including the author’s parents) and documents which enhance the already considerable power of the text. Interestingly enough, it is the well-preserved linguistic authenticity which lends Still Water Words a kind of time-bending cinematic quality possibly on par with the movie-making enriching Savannah’s already fabled story.

The destruction of cultural legacies witnessed in countries like Ukraine and Syria over the past few years––or even in entire towns destroyed by fires and floods in America––have underscored how unwise it is to take gifts of everyday life and people for granted. West’s extraordinary volume is a great reminder of the increasing value of such remembrance.

By Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

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Remembering Earth-Angel Christia Cummings-Slack

12/15/2022

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Pictured from far right to left are: “Christie” Cummings, Aberjhani, John Beary, Zoe Randall, Javier Matos, and Susan Patrice. (April 6, 1996 Creative Loafing photo by Marcus Kenney from Bright Skylark LP Archives. Originally published with story titled “Commune Strives to Blend Art and Life Into One Big Picture” by Bob Ruggiero)

Some like-minded, and like-spirited, friends once told me that because we had spent so much time “meditating in the light together” we would always be connected on certain levels. That is how I feel about my now departed multi-talented friend Christia Cummings-Slack (?-2022): artist, spiritual coach, women’s empowerment advocate, angelologist, and courageous compassionate human being.

We met in the mid-1990s during the hey-day of the former Blue House, described in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah as a place were: “…artists, poets, musicians, soldiers, and social theorists had gathered to share their talents and talk about possibilities for Savannah’s future. There were black, white, Latino, male, female…” She was then a recent graduate of SCAD and I a bookstore manager also recognized as a columnist and poet.

Christia, known then as Christine Cummings, was also a principal supporter of the now legendary Blue House and a member of the production team for its “’zine” journal publication: OUT OF THE BLUE. The theme for its fall 1996 issue was “A Celebration of Home.” Among the contributors were: now well-known artists like Marcus Kenney and James Russell May; plus, an excerpt from work by poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992) and poems by Blue House founder Susan Patrice, Kathleen Thompson, Don Newman, Louisa Abbot, and Zoe Randall (among others).

Christine and I also contributed to that special historic issue. My contributions to the journal were the poem “Calligraphy of Intimacy” from I Made My Boy of Poetry, and a review of a mini-concert by a beloved acid-jazz rock group called the Hunab Ku Quartet.

Christine may have been the most prolific contributor of us all to that second issue of Out of Blue. In addition to drawings and ads about workshops she was conducting, included was an untitled prose piece in which she reflected on the emotional pros and cons of going home for Thanksgiving. Within her words are clear signs of an evolving spiritual seeker as she notes observations like:

“I have been learning lately that if you really need to do something or want something that is ultimately good for you, the energy will be there to make it so.” In response to an aunt’s interpretation of the sudden appearance of certain caterpillars, she later states: “…I feel as though I am in my cocoon already emerged in the darkness and beginning to transform into a soul that can fly free…”

Christina also contributed to the Out of the Blue journal something which took me completely by surprise. It was a poem:

Autumn by Christine Cummings

She tires easy now
The wind blows cooler
Her color changes
The wind blows faster
Her color fades
She misses the warmth of the sun
and children playing around her.

Soon she will be barren
She will get sleepy
and draw within herself
and dream while
her roots draw
nourishment from the
Great Source, the Great
Mother, feeding her
dreams of belonging
and of coming HOME.

The Blue House had to close its doors after a few years and our life paths led us in different directions determined by personal obligations. Via occasional in-person visits and a new thing called email, we managed to lose touch with each other reconnect many times over the years. We shared a passion for angel lore, which in her works manifested as inspiring art and channeled insights. In mine, it took the form of poems that gave birth to the book The River of Winged Dreams. We also both greatly appreciated and drew encouragement from the poetry of Rumi.

All of this meant we were able to encourage each during uncertain times in our lives. She thought I got it wrong when I said a popular journalist friend of mine would likely become a friend of hers as well because I felt the essence of their natures to be very similar. She later decided I got it right. When we discussed the “possibility” of her becoming engaged to Richard Slacks Jr., something in her voice told me it was already a beautiful done deal, and one that would bless both their lives for a long time.

It was an honor to watch, from a short distance, as she evolved in the manner which she sensed was to come when writing in Out of the Blue and became: Christia. I smiled to read the different testimonies of people who said she touched their lives in healing and sometimes life-changing ways. Almost like an Earth-Angel they had never dreamed of encountering.

"BE LOVE"

For her part, she knew her approach to spirituality would be viewed as “radical” by some and did not apologize for it. Just the opposite in fact: “I AM A Certified Angelic Life Coach, an Ordained Minister, Usui Reiki Master/Teacher, and hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in painting.” Such radicalism, if it really can be called such, seemed an essential antidote to the extremes of violence and hatred which flooded the world throughout her lifetime.

This remembrance tribute to my friend could have ended with her poem. At this particular time in history, however, I feel it more important to end with the following words from her 2005 op ed letter published in CONNECT Savannah: “Now is the time to be Peace, Love, and Understanding in the face of conflict, pain, and suffering. Now is the time to BE LOVE.”

Think of how much the world could gain at this very moment if humanity chose to take to its collective heart those extremely simple and profoundly wise words.

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Exploring the Wonder and Enigma of Flannery O'Connor (part 3 of 3)

12/18/2019

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Postered Chomatic Poetics "Wonder & Enigma of Flannery O'connor" title art graphic by Aberjhani.

Impaired as she was by lupus, O’Connor may not have been able to barrel ahead with the same level of prolific productivity as some of her contemporaries—such as James Baldwin for example-- but neither did she let it bring her career to a screeching halt between the time of her diagnosis and her death on August 3, 1964.

She followed the novel Wise Blood with a collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, in 1955; the novel The Violent Bear it Away in 1960; and the short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge ––a book on which she worked virtually right up until her death–– published posthumously in 1965. In between the writing and the publishing, she marshaled her strength to travel (aided by crutches) and lecture, write articles for popular magazines (for which she was generally well paid), and write numerous letters to friends, supporters, and critics.

(To read part 1 of this story please click here. For part 2 click this link.)

The O’Connor readers and scholars now know would not have been possible without a tightly woven network of friends and family members who supported her work through belief in, and out of love for, her. After illness derailed her plans to live the life of a postmodern New York author, she famously surrounded herself with peacocks at Andalusia, her family’s farm, and allowed the world to come to her just as much as she continued to embrace it on the page and through speaking engagements. Fellow authors, theologians, aspiring writers, general admirers, and would-be lovers in the form of men as well as women often made their way to her front door.

Flannery O'Connor quotation art graphic by AZ Quotes.

Her editor, Robert Giroux, believed enough in the corpus of her work that in 1971 he published The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. A compilation of all her short fiction, The Complete Stories went on to win the National Book Award for Fiction in 1972, and in 2009—shortly after Brad Gooch’s biography was published–– was voted “The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction.”

Mother and Daughter Together

Of all those who shared their life’s energies to help endow Flannery O’Connor’s with enduring meaning possibly none were more crucial than her mother, Regina Cline O’Connor. The relationship between mother and daughter could alternate between a sensitive symbiosis and a barely-restrained combativeness. But: the fact is that despite her great intellectual prowess Flannery O’Connor was made an invalid by her disease and it could not have been any easier for her mother to watch her daughter’s slow agonizing physical decline any more than it had been to watch her husband’s. She nevertheless bore the “cross” of the affliction which defined so much of her own life’s story.

As such, she did the kinds of things caregivers tend to do when committed to ensuring as high a quality of life as they can for someone they love: setting aside a thermos of hot coffee at night to share with Flannery in the morning, running a farm to secure an income, tolerating the droppings and cries of beautiful but annoying peacocks, traveling abroad with her daughter even when she herself was ill, and standing guard at her hospital room door to ensure a chance at rest and possible recovery.

Regina Cline is very much present in the pages of Flannery but a section or two presented within the context of her struggles to assist her daughter might have made this powerful biography even more compelling. She outlived the writer by almost thirty-one years, dying on May 8, 1995, at the age of ninety-nine.

In Praise of Those Who Wait

In the acknowledgments section of his biography on the author, Brad Gooch informs readers that he “first stepped into the world of Flannery O’Connor in the late 1970s.” Thoroughly smitten by what he found in that world, he respectfully wrote her close friend Sally Fitzgerald, editor of The Habit of Being, Letters of Flannery O’Connor, to obtain her blessings for his hope to write a biography. Fitzgerald advised him in 1980 against such an undertaking because she was already in the process of writing a literary biography of her friend. Consequently, Gooch held off and waited, even beyond Fitzgerald’s death in 2000, for a book that never appeared.

Then, approached by an editor in 2003 about a biography on O’Connor, it clearly was not an offer he could refuse. A dream which had been deferred for more than two decades finally saw the light of day in 2009 and by most accounts it was very much worth the wait.

Author

Aberjhani is co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance as well as author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah and Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind.

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Literary & Cultural arts Persuasions:
Reviews & Remembrances by Aberjhani

Lights, Cameras, and Poetry: On Evolving Cultures in Savannah, Georgia

Poetic Considerations

Inevitable change or predatory gentrification?

Increasing Value of Remembrance

More on Poets and Poems

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Remembering Earth-Angel Christia Cummings-Slack

Autumn by Christine Cummings

"BE LOVE"

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Exploring the Wonder and Enigma of Flannery O'Connor (part 3 of 3)

Mother and Daughter Together

In Praise of Those Who Wait

Author

Archives

Categories

Literary & Cultural arts Persuasions: Reviews & Remembrances by Aberjhani

Lights, Cameras, and Poetry: On Evolving Cultures in Savannah, Georgia

​Poetic Considerations

​Inevitable change or predatory gentrification?

​Increasing Value of Remembrance

More on Poets and Poems

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Remembering Earth-Angel Christia Cummings-Slack

Autumn by Christine Cummings

"BE LOVE"

AberjhaniAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCreator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Exploring the Wonder and Enigma of Flannery O'Connor (part 3 of 3)

​Mother and Daughter Together

​In Praise of Those Who Wait

Author

Archives

Categories

Literary & Cultural arts Persuasions:
Reviews & Remembrances by Aberjhani

Poetic Considerations

Inevitable change or predatory gentrification?

Increasing Value of Remembrance

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Mother and Daughter Together

In Praise of Those Who Wait