Summer Hill Seven. Hang Time!: A Poetic Memoir. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006

Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Islam. Astoria, NY: Seaburn Publishing Group, 2006

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This winter has not afforded me enough peace for reading, meditation, and writing. I have nevertheless read two small books by two exhilarating black men worlds apart, a few pages a day. One of them is titled Soul on Islam., by the son of Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver. The book is promoted as a memoir; it indeed starts out that way and we learn a bit about what happened to the Cleavers in Algiers (where Ahmad was born) and Paris. But the book is less about the events of his life than it is about his faith in the tenets of Islam to reshape the world for the better, that is, it is more a testament of faith and an attack on the promiscuous culture of the West. Then there is the memoir of a New York poet, Summer Hill Seven, about the same age as Ahmad.

Seven's book is mostly poems sandwiched by an essay at the beginning and one at the end. He calls his Hang Time!: A Poetic Memoir. His book is indeed closer to a memoir, than Ahmad's, and much more personal. Some may even say too personal. In the middle are what is probably fair to call rap poems, that have to do with a consciousness that attacks racism, reassures itself of its talent and ability as writer and actor, and the potency of its sexuality. But rap is exaggerated (a boasting) stage performance (a showing out) and that kind of art runs against the grain of the essence of memoir, an earnest reflective balanced seriousness.

I do not care that much about rhyming rap poems, usually they do not work well on paper, but because of Seven's elevated consciousness on the whole, the poems work fairly well in places. Seven's writing is irreverent; he views life as a kind of game, "play and amusement." Consider an excerpt from his poem "Freak (In Three Acts)":

It is in the essay sections, when Seven is off the stage that we learn more about the inner life, the material and intellectual struggles he had as a child and a young adult. He can be moving and philosophical:

The book is bifurcated, maybe like his life: professional and street-hipster; man on-the-make, one who is thoughtful and an intellectual. Seven is a lawyer/actor in New York. Seven also seems to have had an Islamic connection: he attended Clara Muhammad School and was subjected to "Quranic recitation and analysis."

On the other hand, Ahmad is reverent and puritanical and sees the world as apocalyptic. Initially his voice is one of innocence when he is recalling his personal past as a child but as he turns to his faith, that voice become more critical and harsh in his indictment of the West and nonbelievers.

In the opening essay "On Becoming," Ahmad writes:

Both books Hang Time and Soul on Islam are probably excellent books for their age groups and those younger who have suspicions and an unease about the cultural and political status quo of American society. They are probably excellent for those older readers who are interested in what our young men have endured and the directions they are taking. Both books are accessible for an American audience fickle when it comes to literary culture. Ahmad abandons the personal memoir entirely as he ends his books with the testaments of Muslim converts, including a Christian Bishop. This decision was disappointing and very sad that he did not return like Seven to his parents, their lives, and their influence on the direction he has taken. Both books deserve some attention and some feedback.

I suspect in a way both men because they are special live a degree of isolation. This indeed is probably more true of Ahmad whose concern is more about faith than writing and art, which are the central concerns of Seven. Ahmad suggests that he will never return to America, that he has found a home among Arabs, his Muslim brothers. Both Ahmad and Seven are talented. Their skills are on an upward curve.

—Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

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Summer Hill Seven. Hang Time!: A Poetic Memoir. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006

Summer Hill Seven (f.k.a. Alím Ákbar) — author, actor, artist, and attorney. Although raised in Albany, NY and Trenton, NJ, he has resided throughout the United States in various cities including Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Newark (Delaware and N.J.) and currently New York City.  He graduated, second in his class, from the historically significant Sister Clara Muhammad School in Philadelphia, PA, the oldest school in the United States for the training of Muslim students. He began lecturing in jails and correctional facilities while still in high school.

Seven graduated with honors from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey with a B.A. in Political Science and New York University School of Law, where he was the National Director of Community Service for the National Black Law Students Association.  He was an adjunct professor in African American Studies at the City University of New York.  Currently he is affiliated with the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program. Summer began a career as a professional actor while in law school when he realized the theater was a powerful tool for social change. He has created roles for both stage and screen. While a law student he traveled with a national tour of the Pulitzer Prize winning play, A Soldier’s Story.  He created the role of Husband in the mid-west regional premier of John Henry Redwood’s, The Old Settler at the Phoenix Theater (Eugene O’Neil Award). An entertaining and inspirational speaker, Summer Hill Seven hosts a weekly internet radio show on WVUD – 2: www.wvud.org  and speaks frequently on college campuses throughout the United States.  He is also author of Notes of a Neurotic

Summer Hill Seven created poemedy - a lyrically poetic storytelling form where the past meets the present to create poignant, passionate theater for today and tomorrow.  Hang Time! is for tomorrow.

—David Lamb,Writer/Producer Platanos & Collard Greens

This is a profound work of art by a very talented and gifted poet.  I highly recommend it to all who appreciate the spoken and written word.

—Sekou Molefi Baako, Executive Director, Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center-Queens Public LibraryPresident, Black Caucus of the American Library Association

Summer Hill Seven’s ebullient “neo-beat-hip-hop” verse explodes from the page to the stage with a powerful multicultural message!  Delightful!

—Phil Hubbard,Chair of Performance Studies Department University of Nevada Las Vegas

Summer Hill Seven is an exceptionally gifted writer and performer whose work is both entertaining and thought provoking.

—Sanford Robbins,Director, Professional Theatre Training Program, University of Delaware

Fiercely powerful!

—Jennifer Weaver, Daily News of Southern Utah

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Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Islam. Astoria, NY: Seaburn Publishing Group, 2006

Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver is a 36 years old African-American. He was born in Algeria while his father, who was a leader in the Black Panther Party, was in exile from the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s. Then the family lived in France and he visited America on two occasions before his family returned to the USA when he was 6 years old. In 1992 he graduated with a B. A. from the Africana Studies and Research Department at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He was raised as a Christian and has for the last 13 years been a Muslim. He comes from a family of writers and social activists.

Since embracing Islam he has been a dedicated student of Islamic studies and the Arabic language. He has studied the teachings of Islam in classes held in mosques under teachers in America, Sudan, Kuwait and in Qatar. He is fluent in the Arabic language, have studied it formally as a Second Language in those same three different Arabic speaking nations mentioned above. He has authored one recently released book entitled "Soul on Islam." He brings to an audience an informative and enlightening presentation that opens their eyes about the way of life of over 2 Billion people. He has been living abroad for the past 7 years in Doha, the capitol of the small Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar that borders Saudi Arabia. He works as an Instructor of English as a Second Language for an oil company. His background has molded him to become a bridge of communication between the Muslim and Arab world and Americans. http://www.myspace.com/soulonislam

Soul on Islam is the first book written by Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver, the son of best selling author Eldridge Cleaver. This book is an informative memoir sketching his life with his parents, activists in America's civil rights movement, including details of their life in Algeria, where he was born, France and in America. Then the book continues to unfold and gives the reader a very moving and beautifully put description of how the author came to embrace Islam twelve years ago. He has spent nearly a decade living and traveling amongst the Muslims in countries in the Arabian Peninsula and in Africa and in the book he shares some of the stories and scenes that he has passed through while living in Sudan and in Qatar.
—Publisher

Although Soul on Islam is a personal, insider's view of one of America's famous "militant" families, the author offers that there are some universal percepts to be learned from his experiences. Thus through a series of short letters and essays, he outlines a worldview predicated on the idea that all human beings come from one place and are ultimately programmed to serve the one Creator. By taking this approach, Ahmad Cleaver attempts to bridge the schisms created by humanity that are based on race, color, ethnicity, gender, national origin or any other category used to divide us from one another and our true nature as human beings. Consequently he begins by telling his own story, but ends telling the conversion stories of Muslins from a diversity of backgrounds.

Like myself, you will likely not agree with absolutely everything that Ahmad Cleaver says about Islam, the African-American struggle and the Sixties. However, you are likely to come away with a greater appreciation for the striking similarities between the struggles of the youth of today and the struggles of the youths who came up during the heyday of the Black Panther Party.

—Dr. James E. Jones, Chair of World Religions, Manhattanville College

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posted 22 February 2007 / update 1 July 2008