His whole intellectual curiosity was sparked in prison when one of the guards confiscated his poster of a white women. The guard said he would only allow him to pin up a poster of a black women. This bemused Cleaver as to why he adored white women and disregarded black. The train of thought would soon lead him to a spiritual and intellectual awakening that would help define a generation.
When I first read his book, Soul on Ice, (in the summer of 2001 as a 19 year old) it was way over my head. The idea for reading his book actually came from a rapper named Ras Kass, who had an album under the same title. That album was a favorite of mine at the time, and featured such classic politico-rap tracks as "Nature of The Thread".
I had to consult a dictionary nearly every other sentence. I wasn't sure if the meaning I was extracting from the book was the intended meaning of the author. But since I could vaguely grasp some meaning or understanding from the book I read on. I finished it and read it again once more. I was delighted to find as I researched more and talked to others that I had in fact understood his words correctly!
This lead to my ability to take on other challenging works of literature and to understand the public discourse in newspapers and television that had before been unattainable to me.
I wrote this poem around the same time I was reading this book;
“Philosophize with me...
Look deeply into my eyes...
Death comes a thousand times in our lives
And in a thousand different forms,
Everytime our heart breaks,
that's death once more,
You ever read a book before?
And from it, meaning you received,
But you just weren't sure,
If that was the intended meaning of the author?
That's what my life is like right now”
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