Not Knowing...Knowing... It started in the winter of 1967…my exposure to things, words, music and an intriguing aspect of global Black culture that was foreign to me prior to college.  Fêtes, goat water, baked green plantains, fungee, pepperpot, curried goat, jerk chicken, ganja, patois, ackee, ska, calypso, and reggae, numerous jump-ups, jumbies…all invaded and challenged my inability {and truth be told, unwillingness} to even try to understand the English that was spoken to me, the hand gestures and other mannerisms directed my way. I knew I had to allow myself to be flooded with cultural aspects that had the potential to embolden my spirit and expand my perspectives on being “Black.”    Simply, every “foreign” nuance was lumped and termed Jamaican or West Indian while my    ignorance of the diversity of distinct countries was simplified and coalesced in generic phraseology. And when I decided to bust open my isolated homogeneity sense of “blackne...

Clarity While vernacular research may be an area more germane to idiosyncratic literary researchers, it is intriguing that there are more than thirty-seven (37) various uses of the simple word, clarity. Of course, the average person understands the multiplicity of this word’s meaning, intended or suggestive, in a variety of everyday settings and human interactions. Interestingly, this word carries a powerful emotional understanding when one reflects on her/his personal maturity and social development within the complexities of human understanding of difference. And it is withing the diverse arena of personal clarity that routinely manifests a life changing decision or direction.   aaduna has always sought to encompass its literary and visual art direction in the ever-changing cloak of clarity. And we recognize at best, clarity is a very personal and profound understanding of individual psyche and life direction. While you will have to wait to read the inferences that are being m...