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 impressionthe 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.
The website undergoes constant updating. 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
2001-2009
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"The principles of the poetic sentiment lie deep within the immortal nature of man, and have little necessary reference to the worldly circumstances which surround him."
Edgar
A. Poe, "Griswold's American Poetry," 2
(5) The Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion
218 (Nov. 1, 1842)
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Lawyer|Poets|PublishingNews
2010
(Publications)(Forthcoming): Christopher
Cessac, Eros Among the Americans (Main Street Rag,
2010)[Main
Street Rag Publishing]; Monica Youn, Ignatz
(Four Way Books, 2010); Paul Killebrew, Flowers
(Canarium, 2010); Ann Tweedy, Beleaguered Oases
(TcCreativePress, 2010); Dan Olivas, Crossing the Border
(Ghost Road Press, 2010); Gregory Chaimov, Touchstones
(Press 22, 2010).
2009 (Publications):
Seth Abrahamson, The Surburban Ecstasies
(Ghost Road Press, 2009); Michael Blumenthal, And
( BOA Editions, 2009)[cover];
Lee Robinson, Creed (Plainview Press, 2009)[Plainview
Press]; Robert Boliek, Barry Marks, et.al., Einstein
at the Odeon Café (Churn Dash Press, 2009);Andrew
Borene, Blood, Sweat & Fury (iUniverse, 2009);
Elizabeth
Coleman, The Saint of Lost Things (Word Temple
Press, 2009);Rachel Contreni Flynn, Haywire (Bright
Hill Press, 2009)[Bright
Hill Press]; Rebecca Foust, Mom's Canoe (Texas
Review Press, 2009)[book
cover]; William Keener, Gold Leaf on Granite
(Anabiosis Press, 2009); Greg McBride,
Back of the Envelope (Copperdome Press, 2009);
Paul Rice, Through Yesterday's Window (Finishing
Line Press, 2009); Jendi Reiter, Swallow (Amsterdam
Press, 2009)[order
information]; Jonathan Rothschild, The Last Clubhouse
Eulogy (Chax Press, 2009); Kit Thornton, Piltdown
Agonistees (publisher unknown)
Our "Best"
for 2009: William Keener, Gold
Leaf on Granite (Anabiosis Press, 2009); Michael
Blumenthal, And ( BOA Editions, 2009)
2009 (Legal
Studies Forum): Our 2009 issues include
three, single poet issues: Margaret J. Hoehn's "collected
works"; Gary Forrester's "The Beautiful Daughters
of Men" (a novella in short verse); Lee Warner Brooks's
"Novlets: 67 Sonnets."
Our "general 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. (It also includes stories by Paul Homer, Lowell B. Komie, and Laura Chalar.)
2008 (Publications):
L. Ward Abel, The Heat
of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008);
Jim Chastin, Antidotes & Home Remedies (Village
Press Books, 2008); Rebecca Clark, Bending Light
(Finishing Line Press, 2008); Nancy
Henry, Who Are You? (Sheltering Pines Press,
2008);Louis Faber, The Right
to Depart (Plain View Press, 2008); Rebecca
Foust, Dark Card (Texas Review Press, 2008);
Richard Krech, In Chambers (sunnyoutside press,
2008); Richard Krech, Within The Curtilage (Dover,
Delaware: Bottle of Smoke Press, 2008); John
Levy, Oblivion, Tyrants, Crumbs (First Intensity
Press, 2008); Tim Nolan, The
Sound of It (New Rivers Press, 2008);
Frank Pommersheim, East of
the River: Poems Both Ancient and New (Rose Hill
Books, 2008); Carl Reisman, Home
Geography (Stone City Press, 2008)(illustrated by
Ronald Wojtanoski);Mike Sutin, Graven Images
(Sunstone Press, 2008); Day Williams, 100 Sonnets
(Carson City, Neveda: Days Rays, 2008); Susan Settlemyre
Williams, Ashes in Midair (Many Mountains Moving
Press, 2008);
Kathleen Winter, Invisible
Pictures (Finishing Line Press, 2008); Warren
Woessner, Clear All the Rest of the Way: New &
Selected Poems 1987-2007 (The Backwaters Press, 2008);
Our 2008 'Best Finds'
(of previously published 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). An issue of the Legal Studies Forum
featuring Hoehn's was published in early 2009. The
issue (119 pgs./$10) can be obtained by contacting James
R. Elkins. The poetry is quite extraordinary.
News
& Publications Archive
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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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