Aberjhani (born Jeffery J. Lloyd July 8, 1957, in Savannah, Georgia) is an American historian, columnist, novelist, poet, artist, and editor. Although well known for his blog articles on literature and politics, he is perhaps best known as co-author of ''

Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance ''The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance'' (Facts On File Publishing and ) by Sandra L. West and Aberjhani, is a 2003 encyclopedia of the lives, events, and culture of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s to 1940s. An ebook edition was publishe ...

'' and author of ''The River of Winged Dreams''. The encyclopedia won a Choice Academic Title Award in 2004.

Early life and education

Aberjhani grew up in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

. Upon graduating from Savannah High School in 1975, he studied journalism, creative writing, and the American community at a variety of colleges:

Savannah State College ) , established = , closed = , type = Public historically black university , parent = University System of Georgia , academic_affiliation = Space-grant , endowment ...

(now University);

Eckerd College Eckerd College is a private liberal arts college in St. Petersburg, Florida. Founded in 1958, part of the campus is waterfront and beach on Boca Ciega Bay. Because of its location, Eckerd is considered a "beach school" and has its own student ...

in St. Petersburg, Florida;

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

;

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

; and the

New College of California New College of California was a college founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President John Leary. It ceased operations in early 2008. New College's main campus was housed in several buildings in the Mission ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He completed additional studies in journalism at the Fort Benjamin Harrison School of Journalism in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

Military service

He served a two-year tour of duty with the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

Fairbanks, Alaska Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

; four years in

Suffolk, England Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

; and another two years with the USAF Reserves in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

. He studied Equal Opportunity and Human Relations Counseling at the DEOMI Institute at Tyndall AFB, Florida.

Literary career

The author took the

name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal ...

Aberjhani as an adult: he says that it came to him in a dream. He continued writing while in the Air Force. He later served from 1994 until 2001 as co-editor of the ''Savannah Literary Journal''. During the same period, he served as a literary reviewer for the Georgia Council for the

Arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

and held various position with the Poetry Society of Georgia, the oldest such literary organization in the state, and became well known as both a spoken word poet and published author. His national debut came in 1997 with ''ESSENCE Magazine's'' publication of his cover story/essay "This Mother’s Son." The magazine at the time commanded a circulation of 7 million readers. From 1999 to 2005 his poems appeared regularly in ESSENCE, making him one of the most well-known poets in the United States.

Literary influences

Aberjhani has said in interviews that he has been influenced more by

literary movements Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...

than by individual writers. He co-edited an encyclopedia on the Harlem Renaissance, a major 20th-century movement. But others have included

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

in general,

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, the Beats, the

Black Arts Movement The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from ...

, Postmodernism, and

Existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

. He has also gone on record as being influenced at different periods by the following authors:

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...

, W.E.B. Du Bois,

Henry Dumas Henry Dumas (July 20, 1934 – May 23, 1968) was an American writer and poet. He has been called "an absolute genius" by Toni Morrison, who as a commissioning editor at Random House published posthumous collections both of his poetry, ''Play Ebo ...

, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner,

Khalil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...

, Langston Hughes,

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...

, Federico Garcia Lorca,

Dambudzo Marechera Dambudzo Marechera (4 June 1952 – 18 August 1987) was a Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels (one published posthumously), a book of plays, prose, and poetry, ...

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

James Alan McPherson James Alan McPherson (September 16, 1943 – July 27, 2016) was an American essayist and short-story writer. He was the first African-American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was included among the first group of artists who re ...

, with whom he shares the same hometown and was featured in th
Literary Savannah
anthology,

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

, Anais Nin,

Jalal al-Din Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

, and

Margaret Walker Margaret Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. H ...

Works as visual artist

The writer made his debut as a

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

with a photographic documentation of the impact of

Hurricane Matthew Hurricane Matthew was an extremely powerful Atlantic hurricane which caused catastrophic damage and a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, as well as widespread devastation in the southeastern United States. The deadliest Atlantic hurricane sinc ...

on the Historic District of Savannah in 2016. The series included a

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

image originally titled " Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge the Morning After Hurricane Matthew No. 2" and which was used to help promote efforts to change the bridge's name ''Savannah Tribune, "Renaming The Talmadge Bridge: A Free Public Discussion Moderated By The Honorable Dr. Otis S. Johnson" (Aug 16, 2017)''. In 2018 he created the compositional

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

technique and subsequent body of work named after it called "Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle." His art is featured extensively in the book ''Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah''and on the cover of ''Greeting

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often ...

at the Back Door of My Mind.''

Awards and honors

*2006, Aberjhani won a Readers Poll: Savannah Poet and

Spoken Word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

Artist of the Year Award, conducted by ''Connect Savannah''. *2007, Accepted as member of The

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

*2009, he was inducted into the Red Room Hall of Fame; Red Room is an online writers community and marketing site based in San Francisco. *In 2011 he received a "

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

Tribute Portrait", or ''VIP DOT'' by the artist David Ilan. *2011,Listed as one of "The New Black" published in

Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...

Diann Blakely Diann Blakely (June 1, 1957 – August 5, 2014) was an American poet, essayist, editor, and critic. She taught at Belmont University, Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, led workshops at two Vermont College residencies, and served as senio ...

author, June 13 online edition. *2012, Became a member of

PEN American Center PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate Freedom of speech, free expression in the United States and worldwide through the ad ...

, an affiliate of the worldwide

PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internationa ...

organization. *2014, Received and accepted invitation from

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

administrators to join its selection of members and "influencers" publishing on the website. *2019,

Poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

“Suzannian Algorithm Finger-Painted on an Abstract Wall” published in 5-Decade Retrospective Catalog commemorating the life and career of

Suzanne Jackson (artist) Suzanne Jackson (born 1944) is an American visual artist, gallery owner, poet, dancer, educator, and set designer; with a career spanning five decades. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. Since the late 1960s, Ja ...

and in conjunction with exhibition at Telfair Museums

Jepson Center for the Arts Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...

Humanitarian causes

Aberjhani founded the online ''Creative Thinkers International'' community in September 2007 to support creative nonviolent conflict resolutions in the face of escalating warfare and terrorism following 9/11. Consisting of more than 500 independent artists from around the globe, the community maintains forums on such issues as Human Liberties Around the World and the potential role of the cultural arts in helping to maintain international peace. In March 2013 he announced his support for the September 2013 Global March for Peace and Unity Event. In January 2014 he signed the international Charter for Compassion. He later as a member contributed articles on Boko Haram, guerrilla contextualization, and social media ethics to the nonprofit organization's Voices Compassion Education Project. In 2016 he joined the ''Span the Gap Movement'' advocating that the name of the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge be changed to one less racially inflammatory. The author first addressed the issue the 2007

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

''The American Poet Who Went Home Again''.

Bibliography

History and memoir

(nonfiction; 2003 and 2010, with Sandra L. West and

Clement Alexander Price Clement Alexander Price (October 13, 1945 – November 5, 2014) was an American historian. As the Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark, Price brought his study of the past to bear on contempora ...

Facts on File Infobase Publishing is an American publisher of reference book titles and textbooks geared towards the North American library, secondary school, and university-level curriculum markets. Infobase operates a number of prominent imprints, includin ...

Infobase Publishing Infobase Publishing is an American publisher of reference book titles and textbooks geared towards the North American library, secondary school, and university-level curriculum markets. Infobase operates a number of prominent imprints, includin ...

) *'' The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois'' (biography, quotations; 2003 and 2010,

Kensington Books Kensington Publishing Corp. is an American, New York-based publishing house founded in 1974 by Walter Zacharius (1923–2011)Grimes, William"Walter Zacharius, Romance Publisher, Dies at 87,"''New York Times'' (MARCH 7, 2011). and Roberta Bender ...

and Open Road Media

Philosophical Library {{Infobox publisher , name = Philosophical Library , image = , caption = , parent = , status = , traded_as = , predecessor = , founded = 1941 , founder = Dagobert D. Runes , successor ...

Series) *''The American Poet Who Went Home Again'' (memoir; 2007, Black Skylark Singing) *''Journey through the Power of the

Rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

Quotations A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...

from a Life Made Out of Poetry'' (literary reference,

quotations A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...

; 2014, Black Skylark Singing) and *''Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah'' (

/history; 2019, Cyberwit.net

Publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

) *''Greeting

at the Back Door of My Mind: Adventures and Misadventures in Literary

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

'' (

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

; 2020, Black Skylark Singing with Lulu Press)

Novel

*''Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World'' (

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

; 2007, Black Skylark Singing) *''Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player'' (reissue; 2019, Amazon

Kindle Direct Publishing Kindle Direct Publishing is Amazon.com's e-book publishing platform launched in November 2007, concurrently with the first Amazon Kindle device. Originally called Digital Text Platform, the platform allows authors and publishers to publish their b ...

)

Short fiction and poetry collections

He has self-published works about childhood experiences in Savannah in both prose and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

as well as being published by different small and university presses. *''I Made My Boy Out of Poetry'' (short fiction and

; 1997/2003, Washington Publications/ iUniverse Publishing) *''Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black'' (poetry; 2006, BSE-Publishing) (

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

and poetry; 2012, 1st U.S. Edition, Black Skylark Singing) *''The Bridge of Silver Wings'' (poetry; 2007, Black Skylark Singing) * Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love featuring paintngs by Luther E. Vann (

and poetry; 2008,

Telfair Museum of Art Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...

and Soar Pub) *''The River of Winged Dreams'' (poetry; 2010, Bright Skylark Literary Productions)

Online columnist

The Digital Clarity Group's

Examiner.com Examiner.com was an American news website based in Denver, Colorado, that operated using a network of " pro-am contributors"' for content. It had various local editions with contributors posting city-based items tailored to 238 markets throughou ...

, under the umbrella of the Anschutz Company and AXS Entertainment, hosted Aberjhani's ''National African-American Art Examiner'' column from July 2009 until June 2016. His topics have included fine art and artists’ biographies, as well as reports on contemporary politics, social network trends, and popular culture. He is noted for a series of articles on the life and death of

, the controversial case of Georgia death-row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis, the presidency of

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

, and the United Nation's 2011 International Year for People of African Descent. His ''Notebook on Black History Month 2012'' series covered historical and contemporary subjects including included

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

, and

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

Articles and essays

* ''Authors

Lee Harper Lee Charles Philip Harper (born 30 October 1971) is an English former footballer, and manager who played as a goalkeeper. He notably played for Queens Park Rangers. Although he spent 3 years at Arsenal, he only played 1 game for that club. Aft ...

’s and

’s New

Books A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ar ...

Likely to Influence

Millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000 ...

’ Dialogues on Race'', Bright Skylark

Literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

Essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

, Feb 2015 * ''A Writer's Journey to Selma

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

'',

Pulse

, Jan 2015 *''Let's Fix It: 7 Steps to Help Replace Legislated Fear with Informed Compassion'', LinkedIn

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

Feature, Oct 2014 * Text and Meaning in Michael Jackson's

Xscape (album) ''Xscape'' is the second posthumous album by American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson. It was released on May 9, 2014, by Epic Records, MJJ Music and Sony Music Entertainment. ''Xscape'' is the tenth release by Sony and/or Motown since Jackso ...

AXS Entertainment, 5-part Series, June 2014 * Gifts of the Poets:

Eugene B. Redmond Eugene B. Redmond (born December 1, 1937, St. Louis)Burton, Jennifer"Eugene Redmond" ''Oxford Companion to African American Literature''. is an American poet, and academic. His poetry is closely connected to the Black Arts Movement and the city ...

and

Coleman Barks Coleman Barks (born April 23, 1937) is an American poet, and former literature faculty at the University of Georgia. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English t ...

, Networked Articles, April 2014.
Text and Meaning in Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech
Red Room Networked Articles, August 6, 2013.
World-class Musicians Honor Turkey’s Long Relationship with Jazz
Red Room Networked Articles, May 1, 2013.

Creative Spirit of the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...

, March 19, 2013. * 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization: Dreams and Nightmares Red Room blog article, Oct 1, 2012
Guerrilla Decontextualization and the 2012 Presidential Election Campaign
Red Room Authors & PEN American Center, July 30, 2012
Poetics of Paradigm Dancing in the 2012 Presidential Election Campaign

, June 6, 2012
"Trayvon Martin, Robert Lee, and Millions of Tears Fallen"
editorial on the

killing of Trayvon Martin On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of mixed race, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for his ...

* ''Notebook on Black History Month 2012''
Part 6
: ''The Consecrated Soul of Whitney Houston'' (editorial with poem) Feb 17, 2012. * ''Notebook on Black History Month 2012''
Part 4
: ''The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975'', Author Blog, Feb 15, 2012.
Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis Article Series
Red Room Author Blog, July 2009 – 2011.
Looking at the World through Michael Jackson's Left Eye
''Michael Jackson Tribute Portrait'', Aug 29, 2011 *"President Barack Obama and the Message Beyond the Photograph," ''Examiner'', May 20, 2011 *"What Death of

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

Indicates about Barack Obama’s Leadership," ''Examiner'', May 2, 2011.
Black History Month: What Would Du Bois Do Today?
''AOL Black Voices'', Feb 23, 2011. *"As Egypt Howls and History Tweets," ''Examiner'', Jan 29, 2011. *"Black History Month Enhanced by 2011 International Year for People of African Descent," ''Examiner'', Jan 25, 2011. *"Haiti and Humanity’s Fierce Urgency of Now," ''Examiner'', Jan 22, 2010. *"Work and Soul in

's This Is It," ''Examiner'', Nov 14, 2009. *"The

Way Down South," ''Amazon Short'', May 2007. *"How to Spitfire in the South, ''THE SOUTH'' Magazine," August 2006. *"A Legacy Less Traveled, Dr. Deborah Mack Shines a Light on Early African-American History in Savannah," ''CONNECT SAVANNAH'' News Magazine, May 10, 2006. *"Not Fading Away," on WWII Veteran John Morrison, ''CONNECT SAVANNAH'' News Magazine, Feb 8, 2006. *"Woman to Woman," ''CONNECT SAVANNAH'' News Magazine, Oct 12, 2005. *"The Keepers of Their People's Spirit," ''REDBRIDGE Review Journal'', Oct 10, 2005. *"The Artist Known as Pleasant," ''CONNECT SAVANNAH'' News Magazine, Aug 17, 2005. *"This Mother’s Son," ''ESSENCE Magazine'' cover story, Nov 1997.

Selected titles as editor

* ''Savannah Literary Journal'' (1994-2001, Savannah Writers Workshop) ISSN 1070-6194 * ''What Leaders Believe'' (Polk and White; 2010, Mountain State Univ Press) * ''Savannah, Immortal City, Vol. 1 Civil War Savannah Series'' (Sheehy, Wallace, and Goode-Walker; 2011, Emerald Book Co.) * ''Savannah: Brokers, Bankers, and Bay Lane, Vol. 2 Civil War Savannah Series'' (Sheehy, Wallace, and Goode-Walker; 2012, Emerald Book Co.)

Notable Anthology Inclusions

*''Discover Savannah CD-ROM'' (digital travel guide edited by Angela Lain and Laura Lawton, Crisfield

Multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

, 1996). *''Literary Savannah'' (travel anthology edited by Patrick Allen,

Trinity University Press Trinity University Press is a university press affiliated with Trinity University, which is located in San Antonio, Texas. Trinity University Press was officially founded in 1967 after the university acquired the Illinois-based Principia Press. T ...

; August 2011) Hamilton, Lynn. ''After Midnight''.

Creative Loafing Creative Loafing is an Atlanta-based publisher of a monthly arts and culture newspaper/magazine. The company publishes a 60,000 circulation monthly publication which is distributed to in-town locations and neighborhoods on the first Thursday of ...

. (Dec 29, 1998): Vol 5, No. 40, cover story *''Black Gold: An Anthology of Black Poetry'' (edited by

Ja A. Jahannes Ja Arthur Jahannes (August 25, 1942 – July 5, 2015) was a professor at Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia and the pastor of the Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church in Savannah. He was a prolific playwright, music composer, essayist, a ...

, Turner Mayfield Publishing, 2014)

Notes

References

* Allen, Patrick (2011). ''Literary Savannah''. Trinity University Press. July. . p. 277-279, p. 281. * Scott, Dee (2010). "Interview with Aberjhani." ''Authors on the Rise'', February.
Staff. "Savannah Author Inducted Into Red Room Hall of Fame"
''The Savannah Tribune'', 4 November 2009, p. 3. * Nhojj (2008). "Singer Nhojj Interviews Aberjhani." ''MySpace Entertainment Profile.'' 13 October 2008. *Harris, Marlive (2008). "Grits.com Interview with Aberjhani and Luther E. Vann," ''Grits.com'', September 2008. * Sickler, Linda (2008)."ELEMENTAL, At Last" review of ''ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love.''CONNECT SAVANNAH'', 4 June cover story. * Weickgenant, Joel (2008). "Words and Paint," ''Savannah News Press,'' 12 Jan. ''Arts Magazine'' cover story. * Barfield, Randall (2007). "Interview with Aberjhani." ''POETRY LIFE AND TIMES'' eZine, July. * Gusby, Kim (2003). "Interview with Aberjhani." ''Coastal Morning Sunrise'' on WTOC, Savannah, GA. October 2003.

External links

Official Author WebsiteWorld Catalogue IdentitiesPoetry Life and Times An Interview with Author-Poet AberjhaniLibraryThing AuthorOpen Library BioCreative Thinkers InternationalAberjhani at American Pen Center
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