Hints and Allegations The World (In Poetry and Prose) According to

by Kunstler, William M.; Ginsberg, Allen

• ISBN13: 9781888363166
• ISBN10: 1888363169
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-01-09
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Summary

Like most things William Kunstler does, the poems in this collection rattle the foundations of venerable American institutions, in this case our poetry canon and our entrenched notion that institutionalized racism is a thing of the past. His blending of high seriousness of purpose with lightheartedness of tone appears effortless and masterful. This is not ivory tower stuff. It is experience lived as fully as possible and only then recast in lyric form. Kunstler knew most of the people he writes about. A good number of those who live on in these pages had him as their only defender, some ke kept out of prison, others from the electric chair. In many ways, this book is Kunstler's true autobiography. Reading the sonnet and accompanying prose paragraph on Dr. Martin Luther Kings, Jr., for example, we learn all we need to know about the bond between Kunstler and the younger clergyman, and the seven years they worked together. And from the sonnet and commentary on Morton Stavis we grasp how deeply Kunstler feels the calling of his profession, by his anguish at the loss of his attorney friend who had for many years defended him in the courts.

Author Biography

Attorney WILLIAM M. KUNSTLER (1919–1995) was the cofounder of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the author of more than a dozen books. He was the special trial counsel to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1962 to 1968, as well as the defense attorney for the Chicago Seven and other celebrated cases.