 Lawyers
and Poetry
On first impression, it seems that lawyers and poets
must exist in different universes of thought and feeling,
product and practice. For many lawyers and poets there may be
truth embodied in the crude impression: the law leads north
and poetry south; to follow the one path is to preclude 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, 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, at times a sense of wonder,
at the idea of someone who is a 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 lawyers and poets,
in a similar way, 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. With our great ignorance
of poetry, how can it continue to play a
part in our literary lives? What makes poetry, and the poet,
special, different, marginal, misunderstood, ignored?
We may find that the poet and the lawyer see 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
tastes, 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 ]
Lawyer
Poets Around the World
Poetry Resources
News Archive
Strangers to Us All:
Lawyers and Poetry is based
on research on lawyer poets conducted by Professor James
R. Elkins, College of Law, West Virginia University.
The site was first posted on Labor Day,
September 2, 2001. Please
contact Professor Elkins
with criticisms and aberrant thoughts about this endeavor.
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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) Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion
218 (Nov. 1, 1842)
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Lawyer|Poets|PublishingNews
News
& Publications of Lawyer Poets Archive
[2001-2017]
2021 (Collections
of Poetry by Lawyers):
Anita S. Pulier, Toast (Finishing Line Press, 2021);
Michael Kleber-Diggs, Worldly Things (Milkweek
Editions, 2021) , Ace Boggess, Escape Envy (Brick
Road Poetry Press, 2021); Jayne Moore Waldrop, Pandemic
Lent: A Season in Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2021);
Michael Blumenthal, Don't Die: Poems 2013–2021
(Rabbit House Press, 2021); Karen Poppy, Our Own Beautiful
Brutality (Finishing Line Press, 2021)' Betsy Bernfeld,
The Cathedral Is Burning (Finishing Line Press,
2021); Gay Parks Rainville, Clearing the Mask (Finishing
Line Press, 2021).
2020 (Collctions of Poetry
by Lawyers): Erica Bodwell,
Crown of Wild (Two Sylvias Press, 2020); Ann Tweedy,
A Registry of Survival, (Last Word Press, 2020);
Thomas J. Erickson, The Lawyer Chronicles (Kelsay
Books, 2020); Gay Parks Rainville, Clearing the Mask,
(Finishing Line Press, 2020); Karen Poppy, Crack Open/Emergency
(Finishing Line Press, 2020); Amy Woolard, Neck
of the Woods (Alice James Books, 2020); Karen Poppy,
Every Possible Thing (Homestead Lighthouse Press2020);
Michael H. Levin, Falcons (Finishing Line Press,
2020); Elya Braden, Open the Fist (Finishing Line
Press, 2020); Mary K O’Melveny, Merging Star Hypothesis
(Finishing Line Press, 2020); Eric Blanchard, The Good
Parts (Finishing Line Press, 2020); Dotty E. LeMieux,
Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune (Finishing Line
Press, 2020); Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Cartographer of
Crumpled Maps: The Justice Elegies (Finishing Line
Press, 2020).
2019 (Collections
of Poetry by Lawyers): Reginald
Dwayne Betts, Felon: Poems (W.W. Norton, 2019);
Warren Woessner, Exit ~ `Sky
(Holy Cow! Press, 2019); Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
(Graywolf Press, 2019); L. Ward Abel, The Rainflock
Sings Again (Unsolicited Press, 2019); Stephanie Laterza,
The Psyche Trials (Finishing Line Press, 2019);
Phillip Emanuel Frost Bounds, With Open Hands (Spartan
Press, 2019); Jayne Moore Waldrop, Retracing My Steps
(Finishing Line Press, 2019); Laura Schulkind, The
Long Arc of Grief (Finishing Line Press, 2019); Simon
Perchik, The Gibson Poems (Cholla Needles Arts
& Literary Library, 2019); Fiona Tinwei Lam, Odes
& Laments (Caitlin Press, 2019); RebeccaFoust,
The Unexploded Ordance Bin (Swan Scythe Press,
2019); Gregory Ashe, Haunted by Ghosts of Past and
Present Love (Finishing Line Press, 2019); Elizabeth
Shafer, Wellsprings (Finishing Line Press, 2019);
G. H. Mosson, Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time
(Finishing Line Press, 2019).
2018 (Collections of Poetry by
Lawyers): Christopher
Cessac, The Youngest Ocean (WayWiser Press, 2018);
Ace Boggess, I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So
(Unsolicited Press, 2018); Lynne Viti, The Glamorganshire
Bible (Finishing Line Press, 2018); David Atkinson,
The Ablation of Time (Ginninderra Press, 2018);
Jessica Fjeld, Redwork (BOATT Press, 2018); Mary
K. O'Melveny, A Woman of a Certain Age (Finishing
Line Press, 2018); David Orr, Dangerous Household Items
(Copper Canyon Press, 2018); Ashlie Weeks, Tears, Torture,
and Tomorrow (Archway Publ., 2018); Shankar Narayan,
Postcards from the New World (Paper Nautilus Press,
2018); Carol L. Gloor, Falling Back (Word Poetry,
2018); Greer Gurland, It just so happens: Poems to
Read Aloud (Finishing Line Press, 2018); Greg Rappleye,
Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds (Dos Madres,
2018); Anita S. Pulier, The Butcher's Diamond (Finishing
Line Press, 2018); Shankar Narayan, Postcards from
the New World (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018); Gregory
Ashe, Explorations (Finishing Line Press, 2018);
Thomas Erickson, Hailstorm Interlude (Finishing
Line Press, 2018); Michael H. Levin, Man Overboard:
New and Selected Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2018);
Charles D. J. Case, Nectarines, Vodka, Sundays, and
Death (Finishing Line Press, 2018); Betsy Orient Bernfeld,
Eve (Finishing Line Press, 2018)
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