 Lawyers
and Poetry
It seems, on first impression, as if lawyer and poet
must surely exist in different universes of thought, feeling, and
practice. And for many lawyers and poets,there must be truth embodied
in this crude impression–the law leads north and poetry south,
to follow one is to give up the other. Yet, lawyers write poetry,
and poets practice law. Should we be surprised to learn that lawyers,
by training and craft, attuned to the nuance and power of language,
and to the clever deployment of language as rhetoric and drama,
write poetry? We may have grown accustomed, in this era of John
Grisham and Scott Turow, to the idea of the lawyer as novelist,
but there is still some mystery, even a sense of wonderment, at
the idea of a person both poet and lawyer.
Perhaps there is no reason to think so grandly of
our poets or so badly of our lawyers. The celebration of the one
and the damnation of the other becomes rather confused when we find
a man or woman embracing both. Perhaps we misunderstand our poets,
in the way we do lawyers, because we know so little of their practices,
their language, and their contribution to a literate society. Whatever
the relative merits and worth of lawyers and poets, we are fast
becoming a society which knows far more about its lawyers than about
its poets. (We know it to be the exceptional reader and person who
reads poetry, and claims to learn from it, to depend on it to hone
sensibilities and chart a path in the world.) With our great ignorance
(if not active disdain) of poetry, how can it continue to play a
part in our literary lives? What makes poetry, and thus the poet,
special, different, marginal, misunderstood, ignored?
We may find that the poet, like the lawyer, sees the
world in a nuanced way that demands it be addressed with a special
language, language that calls attention to itself and sets itself
apart by form, rhythm, and practice. Both poetry and law are acquired
taste, all the more surprising, to have such tastes acquired by
a single person.
What then can be said about lawyers who become poets, poets who
become lawyers? First things first. We begin by identifying this country's lawyer/poets:
Chronological Index
Alphabetical Index
State Index
Civil War
Misc. Index
Contemporary
Lawyer Poets [ A-L ]
Contemporary
Lawyer Poets [ M- Z ]
An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers
Lawyer
Poets Around the World
Poetry Resources
Books By Lawyer/Poets We're Reading
News Archive
Strangers to Us All:
Lawyers and Poetry is based on research conducted by Professor James R. Elkins, College of Law,
West Virginia University. The
site was first posted on Labor Day, September 2, 2001.
Since that first posting the site has undergone constant revision. I add the names of newly discovered lawyer
poets as I locate them.
Please contact Professor
Elkins with criticisms or aberrant thoughts about this endeavor. Suggestions
for additions are particularly welcome as is biographical information which can be be used on any of the webpages.
© James R. Elkins,
September 2, 2001-2008
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Lawyer|Poets|News
Our Recent (2008) 'Best Finds' (of older work): Two collections and two chapbooks by Margaret J. Hoehn: Vanishings (Writers Voice of the Tampa Metropolitan YMCA, 1998); Balancing on Light: Poems (Riverstone, 2002); The Trajectory of Sunflowers (Backwaters Press, 2004); Traveling Without a Map (Anabiosis Press, 2005). A new issue of the Legal Studies Forum featuring Hoehn's poetry has arrived (it carries a 2009 publication date). Anyone interested in the Hoehn LSF issue can contact James R. Elkins. The Hoehn issue–119 pgs.–is $10; the poetry is quite extraordinary.
2008 (Publications)(Forthcoming): Gary Botting, Canabanadaman: The Collected Poems (T.M. Gagnon, ed.)(2008); Simon Perchik, Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press, 2008).
2009 (Publications)(Forthcoming): Michael Blumenthal, And ( BOA Editions, 2009); Seth Abrahamson, The Surburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009); William Keener,
Gold Leaf on Granite (Anabiosis Press, 2009); Rebecca Foust,
Mom's Canoe (Texas Review Press, 2009)(book cover).
2009 (Legal Studies Forum): Our first LSF issue for 2009 has now been printed. It features the poetry of Margaret J. Hoehn, and is our first poetry only issue devoted to a single author. We have two supplemental issues now in final preparation: an issue featuring Gary Forrester's "The Beautiful Daughters of Men" (a novella in short verse), and an issue titled, "Novlets," 67 sonnets by Lee Warner Brooks. Our second regular issue for 2009 presents poetry by: Iris Alkalay, David Berman, Robert Boliek, Christopher Cessac, Laura Chalar, Elizabeth J. Coleman, Laura Fargas, Léonie Garicoïts, John Hay, Laurel Kallen, William Kenner, Bruce Laxalt, Barry Marks, Jesse Mountjoy, Mariella Nigro, John Perrault, Charles Reynard, Michael Sowder, Saul Touster, Elena Vázquez, Michael Walls, and Warren Wolfson. All of the 2009 LSF issues will be available by end of the year.
News Archive
2001-2008
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For an essay on lawyer/poets, see James R. Elkins,
The Remnants of a Lost & Forgotten Library: On Finding the Lawyer Poets, 30 Legal Stud. F. 1 (2006) [on-line text]
Contact Professor Elkins.
[Website image (books-lamp-quill): Thomas W. Herringshaw (ed.), Poets and Poetry of Kansas (Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1894)]
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