Picture this: It’s the 1970’s – you’re a young, inexperienced writer. You call boxing legend Muhammad Ali to do an interview, and 3 days later you’re sitting in the kitchen of his training camp. But it’s not fighting Ali wants to talk about, it’s writing.
He earnestly busts out with poems called “freedom” and “truth,” delivering impromptu lectures bashing crime, prostitution, and New York’s filthy magazine stands. In “Muhammad Ali – A Fighter’s Heaven,” author Victor Bockris says there is more to the boxer than the sweat and punches, more to the man than medals and hooks.
Ali fancies himself the black Billy Graham, and he wants Bockris to be the young white college educated long hair who could take his message to the rest of square America… “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” The unlikely poet Muhammad Ali.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Victor Bockris, author of “Muhammad Ali: In Fighter’s Heaven;” Dick Schaap, journalist, and author of “Flashing Before My Eyes.”