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From: Hank Roth <pnews@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9301240633.AA23796@igc.apc.org>
To: radical@redspread.css.itd.umich.edu
Subject: Kunstler
Status: RO
X-Status: 

/* Written  3:57 pm  Oct 30, 1992 by pnews@igc.apc.org in igc:p.news */
/* ---------- "Kunstler" ---------- */
From: Hank Roth <pnews>
Subject: Kunstler

<<< via P_news >>>>
 
There are several legal minds who are morally superior 
individuals who do represent what is good in the process but 
stand far enough outside the political spectrum not to be 
considered seriously by that political process, and that is 
unfortunate because we do have talent on the Left. I could name 
so many, but one in particular comes to mind. Amiri Baraka said 
of William M. Kunstler's poetry that it is a brilliant 
combination of progressive politics and an ironically traditional 
poetic form...a dynamic must." That's right, William Kunstler is 
not only a superb lawyer, our most celebrated fighter for civil 
rights, he is also a poet. Poetess June Jordan says his "lyrical 
evidence" speaks for itself, and it is "prima facie and 
unarguable: The soul of this mighty warrior for justice is the 
soul of a poet." What higher praise than that from June Jordan, 
could be bestowed on William Kunstler? 
 
He writes sonnets because he says if it was good enough for 
Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
William Butler Yeats, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, to name just 
a few, then it is good enough for him. 
 
In 1981 he wrote:
            
                  Jury Selection
 
They come and go, these ciphers from the list,
   Computerized into the courtroom sphere,
To pause, then vanish back into the mist
   Of where rejected jurors disappear.
As each new candidate pops up in line,
   The lawyers search for some revealing clue---
A smile, a frown, a glance, or other sign---
   That might divulge a pertinent point of view,
Then come the endless questions, fast or slow,
   From total strangers dressed in somber tones,
Designed to liberate the hidden flow
   Of random thoughts that lie beneath the bones.
At last the box is filled with Caesar's heirs
   Who flex their thumbs and sink into their chairs.