Odd poem: Muhammad Ali, ‘Me, We’

Me?
We.

*****

Muhammad Ali was invited to talk to a group of Harvard students on June 4, 1975. Someone shouted, ‘Give us a poem, Muhammad’ and he paused, looked up and said: ‘Me? We’. But as it was spontaneous and spoken, the punctuation is what you will, and evokes a variety of ideas and responses. Questions of identity… of Ali himself being part of the roomful of attendees… of the needs of the group outweighing the needs of the individual… the human journey from selfishness to altruism… Certainly all that is in keeping with the speech he gave that night, excerpted here.

It claims title to the World Championship for the shortest poem, at least in the English language.