Aberjhani


American-born multi-genre author Aberjhani is a 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 and author of The River of Winged Dreams. The encyclopedia won a Choice Academic Title Award in 2004.

Early life and education

Born Jeffery J. Lloyd on 8 July 1957 Aberjhani grew up in Savannah, Georgia. 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 ; Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida; Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota; Temple University in Philadelphia; and the New College of California in San Francisco. He completed additional studies in journalism at the Fort Benjamin Harrison School of Journalism in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Military service

He served a two-year tour of duty with the U.S. Air Force in Fairbanks, Alaska; four years in Suffolk, England; and another two years with the USAF Reserves in Charleston, South Carolina. He studied Equal Opportunity and Human Relations Counseling at the DEOMI Institute at Tyndall AFB, Florida.

Literary career

The author took the name 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 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.

History and memoir

He has self-published works about childhood experiences in Savannah in both prose and poetry as well as being published by different small and university presses.
The Digital Clarity Group's Examiner.com, 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 Michael Jackson, the controversial case of Georgia death-row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis, the presidency of Barack Obama, 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, Angela Davis, and Harry Belafonte.

Articles and essays

Aberjhani has said in interviews that he has been influenced more by literary movements than by individual writers. He co-edited an encyclopedia on the Harlem Renaissance, a major 20th-century movement. But others have included Modernism in general, Surrealism, the Beats, the Black Arts Movement, Postmodernism, and Existentialism. He has also gone on record as being influenced at different periods by the following authors: James Baldwin, Albert Camus, W.E.B. Du Bois, Henry Dumas, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Khalil Gibran, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Federico Garcia Lorca, Dambudzo Marechera, Henry Miller, James Alan McPherson, with whom he shares the same hometown and was featured in the anthology, Toni Morrison, Anais Nin, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alice Walker, and Margaret Walker.

Works as visual artist

The writer made his debut as a visual artist with a photographic documentation of the impact of Hurricane Matthew on the Historic District of Savannah in 2016. The series included a black and white 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" . His art is featured extensively in the book Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah.

Awards and honors

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 The American Poet Who Went Home Again.