Bright Skylark Literary Productions
  • Author Statement
    • Blog: Visionary Vibes >
      • Twitter Tweets & News Notes >
        • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
      • Blog: Cultural Arts Reviews and Remembrances
      • 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
    • Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind >
      • Tribute to Savannah Author Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Checking in at Goodreads
        • 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
        • Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player: 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
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style
    • Postered Poetics
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • Choose a Cultural Arts Heritage Project to Support
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel
    • Aberjhani - Author Biography
    • Awards & Honors
    • Aberjhani Portfolio Sampler
    • Michael Jackson in Life & Legend
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Famous Quotes of Note
    • 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
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2

Literary & Cultural arts Persuasions: 
Reviews & Remembrances by Aberjhani

Exploring the stylistic texts, images, and provocative meanings
of contemporary & classic cultural arts.

Main Page

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

2/12/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
“Horizon for Moonflowers and Morning Glories Drunk on Light” artwork by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions ©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. 
Picture
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…
Picture
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

More on Poets and Poems

  • Why Genocide in Ukraine Matters to A Black Poet in America (pt. 1 of 2)
  • ‘Talks Between My Pen and Muse’ an Inspired Literary Debut from Poet Aurie Cole
  • Poetry Life and Times An Interview with Author-Poet Aberjhani
  • Sustaining the Sweet Joyful Howl of Poetry in the 21st Century
  • Portrait of a Poet: The Noble Night of Joy

    Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Submit
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2023
    December 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2019
    November 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2017
    July 2017
    August 2012

    Categories

    All
    1950s
    1960s
    2022 Russia Ukraine War
    20th Century Authors
    21st Century Artists
    21st Century Authors
    21st Century Poets
    Aberjhani
    Aberjhani Observance Of National Poetry Month
    Aberjhani On Aurie Cole
    Aberjhani On Brad Gooch
    Aberjhani On Chinese Famine
    Aberjhani On Dick Gregory
    Aberjhani On Duncan McNaughton
    Aberjhani On Eugene Talmadge
    Aberjhani On Flannery O'Connor
    Aberjhani On Immigration
    Aberjhani On Jean-Paul Sartre
    Aberjhani On Mao Zedong
    Aberjhani On Mark Morneweg
    Aberjhani On Maya Angelou
    Aberjhani On Otis S. Johnson
    Aberjhani On Paul Laurence Dunbar
    Aberjhani On PT Armstrong
    Aberjhani On Russia Ukraine Was
    Aberjhani On Savannah Georgia
    Aberjhani On Savannah-Georgia
    Aberjhani On Yang Jisheng
    Adapting Books For Film
    Africa
    African American Authors
    African-American Authors
    African-American Comics
    African American History Month
    African American Men
    African-American Men
    African Americans
    African Americans Abroad
    African Americans In Japan
    African Americans Living Outside America
    African American Writers In Savannah GA
    African Diaspora
    African Writers
    Alice Walker
    Amanda Gorman
    American Artists
    American Authors
    American Civil War
    American PEN Video
    Andrew Davidson
    Angel Art
    Angel Lore
    Angel Meme
    Angel Of War And The Year 2022
    Angelology
    Annie Cohen-Solal
    Antiracism
    Archangel Michael
    Art By Aberjhani
    Art By Christia Cummings-Slack
    Artist James Russell May
    Artist Marcus Kenney
    Asian Authors
    Audio Podcast
    Aurie Cole
    Author Brad Gooch
    Author Connie Zweig
    Author Franklin D. Lewis
    Author Mark Morneweg
    Author Poet Aberjhani Official Site
    Author-Poet Aberjhani - Official Site
    Authors
    Authors From Savannah Georgia
    Ava DuVernay
    Benjamin Hollander
    Benjamin Van Clark Neighborhood
    Ben Okri
    Ben Okri Videos
    Bill Berkson
    Biography
    Biracial Relationships
    Biracial Women
    Black History Month
    Black Men Who Write
    Black Movie Directors
    Black Women Authors
    Blogs By Aberjhani
    Booker Prize For Literature
    Booker Prize Winners
    Book Industry
    Book Publishing
    Book Reviews
    Book Reviews By Aberjhani
    Books
    Books About Rumi
    Books About Savannah-Georgia
    Books About Sufism
    Books And Authors
    Books By Aurie Cole
    Books By Darrell Gartrell
    Books By Flannery O'Connor
    Books By Patricia Ann West
    Books By PT Armstrong
    Books By Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    Books On Flannery O'Connor
    Brad Gooch
    Brad Gooch Audio Podcast
    Brunswick Georgia
    Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    Caste The Origins Of Our Discontents
    Celebrity Authors
    Chinese Authors
    Chinese History
    Christia Cummings-Slack
    Christina Cummings-Slack
    Christine Cummings
    Classic Authors
    Connie Zweig
    Contemporary Artists
    Contemporary Authors
    Contemporary Literature
    Contemporary Southern Literature
    Cormac Mccarthy
    Cornel West
    Creative Nonfiction
    Creative Thinkers
    Cultural Demographics
    Cultural Heritage
    David Gordon Green
    Dick Gregory Videos
    Digital Publishing
    Director Regina King
    Director Steve McQueen
    Doctorate In Literature
    Dreams Of The Immortal City Savannah Book By Aberjhani
    Duncan McNaughton
    Ebooks
    Education
    El Portal Press
    English As A Second Language
    English Learning Students
    Essay On 21 Years Of Wisdom
    Essays By Aberjhani
    Essays On Ben Okri
    Essays On Duncan McNaughton
    Essays On Flannery O'Connor
    Essays On Immigration
    Eugene Talmadge
    Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge
    Evolving Cultures
    Existential Creativity
    Existentialism
    Fall Of The Rebel Angels
    Famous Women Artists
    Fiction
    Filming Movies In Savannah-Georgia
    Flannery O'Connor
    French Authors
    French Literature
    Genre Bending Literature
    Genre-bending Literature
    Grandmothers
    Great Sufi Poets
    Greeting Flannery O'Connor At The Back Door Of Mind Book By Aberjhani
    Gullah Geechee Culture
    Gustave Flaubert
    Halloween's End
    Hector France
    Historical Fiction
    Historical Poetry
    History
    History Of Civil Rights Movement
    History Of Famines
    History Of Literature
    History Of Racism
    Human Cannibalism
    Iconic Authors
    Immigrant Experience
    Immigration Policies
    Influential Authors
    International Authors
    International Poets
    Interracial Relationships
    Interview
    Isabel Wilkerson
    Jalal Al-Din Mohammad Balkhi
    Jalal Al Din Mohammad Rumi
    Jalal Al-Din Mohammad Rumi
    Jean Genet
    Jean-Paul Sartre
    Jelaluddin Rumi
    Jim Crow Racism
    Lady Gaga
    Latino Ficiton
    Leadership Philosophy
    Leadership Theory
    Life And Legacy Of Dick Gregory
    Life And Legacy Of Flannery O'Connor
    Lillian Gregory
    Literary Biographies
    Literary Community
    Literary Criticism
    Literary Essays
    Literary Friendships
    Literary History
    Literary Honors
    Literary Influencers
    Literary Influences
    Literary Legacies Of The South
    Literary Prizes
    Literary Traditions
    Literature Of Immigration
    Luca Giordano
    Memoir
    Memoir By Darrell Gartrell
    Movie Sets
    Mythology
    National Poetry Month
    New Orleans
    Nicanor Parra
    Nigerian Authors
    Nigerian Literature
    Nigger By Dick Gregory
    Nobel Laureates
    Nonfiction
    Novels
    Official Site For Author Poet Aberjhani
    Official Site For Author-Poet Aberjhani
    Official Website Of Author Poet Aberjhani
    Official Website Of Author-Poet Aberjhani
    Oklahoma City
    Oprah Winfrey
    Patricia Ann West
    PEN America
    PEN International
    Philosophy
    Podcast On Literature
    Poems About Savannah-Georgia
    Poems By Patricia Ann West
    Poetry
    Poetry By Aurie Cole
    Poetry By Duncan McNaughton
    Poets Against War
    Poets From
    Poets From Afghanistan
    Poets From Boston
    Poets From Savannah Georgia
    Poets From Savannah-Georgia
    Poets On War
    Political Activism
    Political Biographies
    Political Strategies
    Political Theories
    Postered Poetics Art By Aberjhani
    Predatory Gentrification
    Preventing Erasures Of History
    Prose And Poetry
    Prose Poem
    Public Intellectuals
    Public School System
    Publishing
    Putin Attacks Ukraine
    QOTD Quote Of The Day
    Quentin Tarantino
    Quotations
    Quotes By Dick Gregory
    Quotes By Flannery O'Connor
    Quotes By Mark Morneweg
    Race In America
    Race In Japan
    Racism In Georgia
    Racism In Savannah
    Racism In The United States
    Reiki Master
    Richard Wright
    Rumi's Birthday
    Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
    Russia Ukraine Conflict 2022
    Russia Ukraine Video
    Russia Ukraine War
    Salman Rushdie
    Sandfly In Savannah Georgia
    San Francisco Poets
    Savannah College Of Art And Design Graduates
    Savannah Georgia
    Savannah-Georgia
    Savannah River
    Savannah State University
    SCAD Graduates
    Singer Sade
    Social Activism
    Social Realism
    Somewhere In The Stream By Duncan McNaughton
    South Carolina
    Southern Legacies
    Spike Lee
    Spiritual Counseling
    Spirituality
    Starvation
    Still Water Words
    Sufi Literature
    Talks Between My Pen And Muse
    Teachable Take-Aways
    Text And Meaning Series By Aberjhani
    The American Poet Who Went Home Again
    The Angel's Game
    The Famished Road
    The Gargoyle By Andrew Davidson
    The River Of Winged Dreams
    The Word "Nigger"
    Toni Morrison
    Tribute To Dick Gregory
    Ukraine Russia Crisis 2022
    Video
    Video Podcast
    Video Poem
    Videos About Rumi
    Videos On Literature
    Wakanda Forever
    War And Peace
    William Anderson
    Wisdom21
    Women Artists
    Women Authors
    Women Poets
    Women's Voices
    World History
    World Poetry Day
    Writers And Writing
    Xenophobia
    Yang Jisheng
    Year 2022 In Review
    Yoko Ono
    YouTube Videos

    RSS Feed

  • Author Statement
    • Blog: Visionary Vibes >
      • Twitter Tweets & News Notes >
        • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
      • Blog: Cultural Arts Reviews and Remembrances
      • 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
    • Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind >
      • Tribute to Savannah Author Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Checking in at Goodreads
        • 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
        • Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player: 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
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style
    • Postered Poetics
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • Choose a Cultural Arts Heritage Project to Support
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel
    • Aberjhani - Author Biography
    • Awards & Honors
    • Aberjhani Portfolio Sampler
    • Michael Jackson in Life & Legend
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Famous Quotes of Note
    • 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
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2