Muhammad’s Mountain

Poetry. African & African American Studies. MUHAMMAD’S MOUNTAIN, the first-ever book-length collection of poetry on the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali, consists of 45 poems, tracing the entire spectrum of outward events and inner forces that made Ali one of the most recognized figures in the world–the boyhood years in Louisville, Ali’s rise to the top of the boxing world, his conviction and subsequent government-imposed exile for refusing to be inducted into the military, Ali’s return to the ring, and the final phase of his life in which he battled Parkinson’s disease while serving as an ambassador for world peace. But as Charles deGravelles, author of the best seller, Billy Canon: A Long, Long Run, notes, This is no boxing book. The complex–even seemingly contradictory–nature of this towering figure is explored poem by poem, carrying with it along the way the sweep of the second half of the American twentieth century.