VISIONS OF A SKYLARK DRESSED IN BLACK, written by American author Aberjhani and slated for an Ocober 2006 publication by Great Britain's Black Poetry Society, exemplifies the international spirit of the first Harlem Renaissance. Aside from periodicals devoted to the exploration of African-American culture, one of the key elements to the success of the first Harlem Renaissance, from the 1920s to the 1940s, was the establishment numerous literary clubs and organizations described as salons. Modern-day equivalents to, and extensions of, the salons of yesteryear can often be found in the form of online Internet literary communities, of which the BLACK POETRY SOCIETY is one thriving example. The Black Poetry Society started in London in 2003 when four avid readers and aspiring writers began meeting to discuss the works of favorite poets as well as share their own original writings. The initial pioneers of the organization were the poet known as Jayci, who would launch the group’s web s...

The award-winning Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, by the author-poet Aberjhani and Rutgers University instructor Sandra L. West, has been listed in the January/February 2006 seventh anniversary edition of BLACK ISSUES BOOK REVIEW as one its recommended “Essentials, selections for the well-stocked library.” In a two-page article titled “Just the Facts,” Brooklyn writer and editor, Zakia Carter notes that such works as the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, the first on the subject, “are foundations of a good home library.” “When you think of all the thousands of books published every year,” said Aberjhani, “it’s pretty mind-boggling to learn that your work has been included on a very short list of titles––about a dozen I believe––that also contains Kwame Anthony Appiah’s and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s phenomenal Africana, which recently was re-released as a five-volume set. It makes me think of Sandra’s and my book as ‘the little encyclopedia that could.’ This is definitely a ...

River to river to river–– love and beauty and death stretching for miles the skin of my heart from high tide to low. Thinking about America and the best way to go. That morning sun, he always come up bleeding, and sweet sugar moon, she mostly go down screamin’. Between a woman and the door and the man beneath the floor I keep sweatin’ bout America and which way I should go. Whereas my skin is black my world is sho’ nuff white. Hand jivin’ just to beat the blues and waiting fast for the night. It’s true I ponder as I wander, but most times I think I know. On the road to my taste of heaven I don’t mind travelin’ slow. Love and beauty and death— river to river to river lynching these dreams swinging naked in my heart, screaming for mercy from high tide to low, I think hard about America and the best way for me to go. (graphic of Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss) © by Aberjhani co-author of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE and author of I MADE MY BOY OUT OF POETRY

    This 1941 portrait of celebrated author James Baldwin, entitled “Dark Rapture,” is one of numerous masterworks created by the equally celebrated Harlem Renaissance artist Beauford Delaney (1902-1979). Delaney (whose brother Joseph, 1904-1991, was also an accomplished artist) enjoyed a remarkable career that spanned some five decades. That he was a visual artist whose creative aesthetics profoundly influenced the work of a major literary artist like James Baldwin is one indicator of how powerfully charged the creative energy of the Harlem Renaissance truly was. Aberjhani Co-author of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE And the author of I MADE MY BOY OUT OF POETRY