Continuance of Spirit…for Vereen

We have all heard the various sayings, often loosely worded and possibly misquoted when we say them: “Necessity is the Mother of Invention: “adversity breeds creativity” “When one window or door closes, another opens” “It is not the end but the beginning” “Don’t give up,” “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” “It is not the end, but the beginning.” 

Need I go on?! 

It is intriguing and optimistic that at the epicenter of most heroic sayings is the unfailing belief in the human spirit. That indomitable emotion to carry on, persevere, push boundaries, explore the unknown, discover, stay determined, focused, embrace gutsiness, have passion…all in the name of spirit.

I am convinced that almost all cohorts of society “corner the spirit market” even as churchgoers and religious folk easily come to mind. However, I lean more towards two groups, athletes, and creatives. And I give more weighted points to creatives. I may be biased in that regard!

Musicians, dancers, artists, writers, poets, sculptors, hobbyists.

So, it is easy for me to grasp and be sensitive to the continuance of Spirit.

Interestingly, I see that continuance most notably in the younger generation of creatives who have been pioneering new avenues of expression that were not necessarily in the public’s consciousness until these creative individualists thrust their spirit upon us and gifted us with break dancing, rap, hip-hop, graffiti, urban and street fashion, text language, varied apps, and a penchant for multi, social media platforms as a pathway for group and simultaneous expression, as well as instantaneous and direct  communication.  So, in that vein, there is

Dionna Vereen.

 

Dionna Vereen, "word, revisited" open mic at the Carriage House Theater, Auburn, NY May 23, 2019.  Photo credit:  Lisa Brennan

Writer, poet, environmentalist, spoken word recording artist, organizer, purveyor of wit, grace, and provider of bountiful smiles and good cheer.

Three years ago, Dionna created “SunGround,” an annual holistic forest festival “rooted in the empowerment of the individual, the immediate collective, and the global collective. The gathering entails yoga, music, poetry, open mics, workshops, vendors, film screenings, the whole nine yards.” This 24-hour continuous June event starts at noon on Saturday and concludes at noon on Sunday in Brown Mills, New Jersey. But while this endeavor manifests her creative consciousness and enables her to bring truth and power to serving as a cultural worker, Vereen comes to aaduna with exciting compositions of words molded into poems of enchantment and wonderment, which prompts us to pause and reflect.

I heard Dionna V read at the ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse, NY, as well as at the Carriage House Theater, the performance space for the Cayuga Museum of History and Art in Auburn, NY. She has the proven ability to mesmerize her audience with cadences and soft-spoken sublime phrases that evolve towards captivating themes that define and embolden her as a poet/spoken word artist to be reckoned with. She is critical part of the growing literary champions who are defining her twenty-something generation. I suspect her ongoing poetic emergence is the beginning of a long and storied career in literary expressions. 

Her poems, "Light/Inverted Light" and "Sapphire Us" will be in the forthcoming issue of aaduna.

Continuance of Spirit.

Dionna Vereen.

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aaduna - an online adventure with words and images - a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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