Year in review collage featuring images from top stories of 2014 written by Aberjhani. Includes photo by Aberjhani and quotation art by Timadae. (by Postered Poetics) Most professional creative artists are familiar with the challenge of having to sometimes divide their inspired energies between remaining focused on one area of productivity while occasionally, simultaneously, completing work in another. It was that kind of cognitive agility that allowed the music of Michael Jackson’s Xscape  album compilation to reconfirm his genius in 2014, five years after his death in 2009. It was also that kind of determined flexibility which allowed this author to remain on track with research for current literary works in progress while also publishing more articles, essays, poems, books, and blog posts throughout 2014 than previously realized. Their titles and headlines confront some of 2014’s most compelling issues, any number of which is likely to continue challenging humanity in 2015

                     Yusef Lateef Gold digital graphic courtesy of Bright Skylark Literary Productions .                             (based on original 1968 Atlantic Records album for "The Blue Yusef Lateef) “ When the soul looks out of its body, it should see only beauty in its path. These are the sights we must hold in mind, in order to move to a higher place.” Yusef Lateef, from “A Syllogism”   How could I have known, as a nine-year-old child growing up in Savannah’s Hitch Village project, that Yusef Lateef was speaking light in the form of music directly to my soul through his saxophone and flute when I first heard his masterpiece of an album The Blue Yusef Lateef ? I could not have imagined that years later, while seeking the timbres of my own creative voice out in the world, his would find me again. It happened this time as I sat in the window of a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, the haunting blues-heavy moans of “Juba Juba” swelling the room as t

                                Cover of Notes to the Future by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu . “Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.” ––Nelson Mandela, Presidential Inauguration Address When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela stood before the people of South Africa on May 10, 1994, as its first black and democratic president, the moment represented much more than a personal victory. It embodied the kind of glimpse into humanity’s potential for harmonious coexistence that history rarely provides. Neither the concept nor the practice of persecution were invented the day Mr. Mandela began as a middle-aged man serving his 27-year prison sentence on Robben Island in 1963.  There are nevertheless, in his case, the notable distinctions of excruciating sacrifice, phenomenal grace, and uncommon personal evolution which moved almost 100 world leaders to attend his memorial in Johannesburg on Human Rights Day, December 10,