Summer Hill Seven
In Notes of a Neurotic, Summer Hill Seven provides poetry, essays and plays that are as bombastic as the writings of Amiri Baraka as piercing as Miguel Pinero and as poetic as Paul Laurence Dunbar often all in the same sentence. In addition to the entertainment and intellectual value, these Notes of a Neurotic are specifically designed to heal the emotions of the reader, the speaker and the writer of these words.
A writer and spoken-word artist who has performed at the Nuyorican Poetry Café, Bowery Poetry Café, Afrikan Poetry Theatre and has toured his work throughout the United States. He has written and directed an autobiographical film – A Poet’s Pilgrimage – about a young poet’s decision to abandon the law and pursue his dream of becoming a poet.
He is a graduate of Sister Clara Muhammad School (Philadelphia, PA), Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (with Honors) and the New York University School of Law. He is the former National Director of Community Service for the National Black Law Students Association and a former Legal Aid Attorney for the Essex-Newark Legal Services of New Jersey.
He is also the author of Hang Time! He has acted with a diverse group of theater companies including the Phoenix Theater (Indianapolis) the National Black Theater (Harlem), and the Utah Shakespearean Festival. He was the original director for Platanos & Collard Greens, the longest running hip-hop play in the country. He currently resides in Newark, Delaware and is affiliated with the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program.
Excerpt from Spoils of War, Scene III
DAVID. Harvard. I studied government and minored in European art and literature.
ATTALLAH. (Figuring him out.) Ah literature.
DAVID. That is how I was able to unravel the mystery of life and death.
ATTALLAH. Life. Death. Life and death. Death and life. If life and death is the whole thing then why did I feel like dying when I was living and now that I am dead why do I feel like living.
I’ll never forget when I was a little girl, I could not wait until I became a teenager so I could play with my older sisters and do the things I saw them do. When I got to high school, I was looking forward to being a cheerleader because that was going to make me the center of everyone’s universe. I became a cheerleader in high school and then I could not wait until I got to college so I could compete with cheerleaders all over the world. After that I discovered a gift for healing people and I could not wait to go to med school, so I could compete with the best healers around the country. After med school I went to Costa Rica to be a “cheerleader for life” for those people who could not afford even the most basic medical care. That’s where I unraveled the mystery of life and death; where it hit me. Death. Death is a reward for even having the courage to come into this life. Death is the reward.
Then I started to long for my reward. I had earned it and why should I have to wait. And what was I waiting for…God to put me out of my misery? After all if life was a conscious decision…if I chose to come here couldn’t I choose to leave whenever I wanted. I can’t tell you how many ways I thought of departing from this life. My favorite but most frightening was leaping from a tall bridge or building. That’s funny, I’m not afraid of death but I am afraid of heights.
But now that I am dead. I can think of a million reasons to live. I have never had chunky monkey ice cream. I never had sex with a black guy, to name two things. I am not in the ground yet, obviously, I am not dead yet if I am talking to you but I have nothing left to look forward to except a beautiful funeral and a blurb in a medical book about being among the first to contract a yet to be named cancer that eats away your bones from the inside out. God is so much more creative and capable then we are when it comes to death - that wasn’t even on my list of ways to commit suicide.
DAVID. Job said “life on earth is war-fare”, although you have to consider his situation. But if you agree then you have to also agree that death is the true booty, or spoils of war. As you say the “reward.”
ATTALLAH. Al-Anfal.
DAVID. Al-Anfal. (Just now realizing this desire.) Let’s get married.
ATTALLAH. I’m dying.
DAVID. I’m not into long-term relationships.
ATTALLAH. No!
DAVID. “And He has put affection between their hearts: not if you had spent all that is in the earth, could you have produced that affection, but Allah has done it: for He is Exalted in might, Wise.”
Excerpt from the Poet Tree section.
Aversion Es Amor
More and more I abhor liquor pero
I abhor the pain of life more
I hate play pero I hate work more
I dislike sex pero I dislike masturbation more
More and more I dislike women pero
I dislike loneliness more
I hate food pero I hate starvation more
I abhor life pero I abhor death more
More and more I despise you pero
I despise me more!
Time Ain’t Money
Time is money.
Time is money!
Time is money?
Time ain’t money.
Time ain’t money?
Time ain’t money!
Time is time.
Money is Money.
Slow down.
