Please allow me to take this time during National Poetry & Jazz Appreciation Month to thank you for all you have shared and continue to share through your poems, articles, stories, blogs, comments, books, and highly-valued presence.

For me, and for many others as well, your words mean a great deal more than a fleeting moment of satisfied literary passion. Think of the various satellites and explorer crafts that different nations have launched into space with hopes of connecting with otherworldly life-forms while we yet struggle to understand and appreciate each other right here on Earth. Or consider the many note-filled bottles still tossed upon waves in these technologically “advanced” times, the intense prayers quietly sobbed in candle-lit corners, and the secret innocent glances that travel back and forth between solitary muted hearts.

The language that you have fashioned into individual portraits of our shared human condition, even when focused on the personal rather than the communal, is one that transcends the uselessness of polarizing falsely-constructed social and political boundaries.  Whether you have chosen to stand pro or con in regard to a specific issue, you have shared your voice via your words. You have done it sometimes with anger and frustration, sometimes with infectious hilarity, and sometimes with determined faith or astonished love. But almost always––at least as I experience your writings––you have done it with irrepressible wonder and the integrity of sincerely soulful articulations.

The singular personal brilliance of your words gives meaning and power to the individual purpose and destiny of my words. Your voices add volume and depth to my voice.

Aberjhani
National Poetry & Jazz Appreciation Month 2015