Presents articles on the period known as the Harlem Renaissance, during which African American artists, poets, writers, thinkers, and musicians flourished in Harlem, New York.
: ELEMENTAL: The Power of Illuminated Love is the product of two individuals¿ combined creative and spiritual visions. It features some 64 paintings by celebrated artist Luther E. Vann with more than approximately 50 accompanying poems and two essays by award-winning author Aberjhani. The art, spanning the early 1970s to 2007, expresses Vann¿s perception of spiritual principles active in the personal and pubic lives of people in New York and Savannah. Introductory essays comment on Vann¿s life and his art. The poems complement the art with themes that explore issues like war, homelessness, the nature of love, and expanded spiritual consciousness.
The American Poet Who Went Home Again is a book of creative nonfiction that blends memoir, literary journalism, history, and biography to tell the story of one writer's rediscovery of his family, his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, and himself. It is composed of four sections containing collectively some twenty chapters and three introductory poems for a total of more than 300 memorable pages with guest appearances by several very special authors. This is a work of true literary art filled with reports from the author's personal spiritual journey and profiles of unforgettable men and women.
More than a book of popular quotes, this volume is a powerful reference tool for some of the most frequently-cited poems, news articles, fiction, memoir, history, and creative nonfiction on the web. It also provides the largest single selection of quotes by the author, many available only in these pages, including the entire special section titled TAO OF THE RAINBOW. In addition, the book as a whole demonstrates the ability of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Google+ to help make positive and inspiring differences in 21st-century life. "Journey through the Power of the Rainbow represents a condensed compendium of literary efforts from a life dedicated to transforming the themes of injustice, grief, and despair that we all encounter during some unavoidable point of our existence into a sustainable life-affirming poetics of passionate creativity, empowered spiritual vision, and inspired commitment." --Aberjhani, from Journey through the Power of the Rainbow
THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS both continues the series established with SONGS OF THE ANGELIC GAZE and THE BRIDGE OF SILVER WINGS, and at the same time offers reading audiences something completely new. Four major poem additions to The River of Dreams set it apart from its predecessors: "Sounds Scribbled Mixed-Media Platinum"; "Notes for an Elegy in the Key of Michael (I)"; "Notes for an Elegy in the Key of Michael (II)"; and the title poem. Each of these stands out in its own right and light. "Sounds Scribbled Mixed-Media Platinum" was written during a live sound painting performance, featuring Savannah, Georgia's, Creative Force Artists Collective and jazzman saxophonist Jody Espina, at the Jepson Center for the Arts. The two "Elegies in the Key of Michael" are among the most surprising additions to the book, first because of the unexpected death of the great Michael Jackson in June 2009, and because of the haiku-influenced form assumed by the elegies.
For the past two years (2006-2008) The Bridge of Silver Wings has earned a name for itself both as a series of poems published in different e-zines and as a book first published in 2007. What makes this 2009 edition a special one is the inclusion of five new poems: "Angel of Better Days to Come"; "Midnight Flight of the Poetry Angels"; "Photographed Light of My Grandmother's Soul"; "There upon a Bough of Hope and Audacity"; and, "What Angels Call a Poet." Readers exploring the pages of this book are likely to experience it in different ways as they move back and forth between one poetic state of being and another. The Bridge of Silver Wings 2009 may at times appear to be nothing more than a silk-thin illusion --resembling at moments either a terrifying nightmare or a healing vision--spread across an evening mist. While at other times it will register as solid as a concrete sidewalk or a giant boulder. (from author's Foreword)
When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry [with fiction], he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future. One of the funny things about those dreams and visions is that although they spring from the heart and soul of the writer, it is not unusual for readers to sometimes see themselves reflected in their light. This is possible because the reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large." --From Introduction to VISIONS OF A SKYLARK DRESSED IN BLACK
Movie-goers, television-watchers, and readers of novels --not to mention students of world spirituality-- have long been accustomed to the idea of paranormal partnerships between humans and angels and terrifying clashes with demons. What they had not seen or heard -until "Songs of the Angelic Gaze" -- were such passionate classic struggles presented in the voice of a modern poet who seemed to have occupied a front row seat to battle in both heaven and hell while transcribing all he witnessed into highly original and powerfully mesmerizing literary art. Those unfamiliar with "Songs of the Angelic Gaze" and "The Bridge of Silver Wings" will be glad to know that THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS contains all the works presented in the previous volume plus much more.
I MADE MY BOY OUT OF POETRY is a powerful literary vision of rare scope, beauty and emotional intensity composed of stories and poems that flow in and out of each other like the most lucid and articulate of dreams. These are portraits and studies of individual souls attempting to make peace with an awareness of themselves as beings more spiritual than material in a world given largely to the latter. This book offers an amazing journey through the heart and soul of a modern seeker of visions.
How does anyone greet an iconic author--like Flannery O'Connor, James Alan McPherson, or John Berendt--at the back door of his or her mind? Is such a thing even possible? Maybe it is when the voice of such an author no longer restricts itself to a printed page. Instead, adopting the form of searches for answers to troubling questions, longings for more engaged connections, or the sudden manifestation of an unexpected dialogue, it takes up residence in a particular life. For more than one demographic of America's diverse populations, back doors were once synonymous with emblems of racial, economic, and political oppression in their most cutting conspicuous forms. They stood alongside crosses burning with flames of hatred as opposed to crosses gleaming with messages of love or redemption, with "Whites Only" and "Coloreds" signs attached to public restrooms and water fountains, seats at the backs of buses and trains or up in balconies of theaters, segregated beaches, pamphlets on eugenics, and "strange fruit" (as Billie Holiday sang of lynched bodies) hanging from southern trees. The back door as it is approached, entered, and exited in the pages of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind represents points in time, places in space, and regions of spirit where sensibilities of an uncanny nature either collide or converge. The results are the kind which continue to increase literature's indispensable value as it pertains to specific communities and the world at large, providing solace and shelter during the best of times and the worst.
Painter of vibrant assemblages and champion of African American art, Suzanne Jackson receives her first monograph Published on the occasion of the first full-career survey of Savannah-based artist Suzanne Jackson (born 1944) at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, Five Decades illuminates a career that spans more than 50 years, across painting, drawing, theatre, costume design, dance, printmaking and sculpture. The book presents a unique selection of Jackson's artworks and explicates their relationships to identity, community, the natural world and the human body. In addition to featuring new photo documentation and archival images, the book includes essays that contextualize Jackson's practice through the lenses of ecowomanism, materiality, an ethics of care and African American retentions. Five Decades complicates canonical and exclusionary narratives and timelines, opening up Jackson's work to new generations of artists, thinkers and doers to find inspiration in the singular contributions one person can make to collective culture.
Confronting as it does the potential link between something as catastrophic as mass suicides and as celebrated as life-affirming popular music, Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player has been known to stir some controversy. Nevertheless, the book's unique use of original song lyric's as an integral element of the overall prose narrative, the author's fusion of literary styles, and a compelling storyline have prompted very positive responses to this compelling work.Whether interpreted as a southern Gothic rock and roll tale or a paranormal love story, readers have found themselves intrigued while wandering about "inside the world of Danny Blue, a young man struggling to make peace with the death of his girlfriend, a gifted artist named Valerie Hyerman whose passing sparks the creation of a controversial spiritual movement. Was her demise a result of suicide, murder, or something completely different from either?"The stunning truth unfolds in Froggtown, a college community where many people are said to have "died dirty" and wander the streets in search of release from a spiritual limbo. Such a town seems an unlikely place for a superstar musician like Jimmy Redfyre to kick off his tour on Christmas Eve, or for his main rival Ruzahn to keep popping up in Danny Blue's life. Is Froggtown a metaphor for a city such as Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia? Or is it somewhere in a completely different dimension altogether, in a place parallel to such cities on a second or third parallel world? Like diverse genres of music itself--whether hip-hop, country, jazz, classical, rock, blues, or alternative--Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player moves to the beats of interior and exterior realities.This text comprises a revised edition of the mythopoeic novel previously known as Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World. As both the title and text of the narrative indicates, the new edition is one that places a greater emphasis on the songs interwoven through the storyline. Readers of the earlier edition know already that the lyrics, presented in full within an appendix, contain important information about the disturbing plot and hopes for resolving it. Supplementing the revised edition of the book is the Bonus Story Tracks blog on the companion website. Planned features include outtakes and supplemental short fiction that give readers more insight into characters and situations while also making the story more interactive.
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