I forwarded this thread to one of our attorneys who is also a poet. Her
response was interesting and I worth sharing:
It is always striking to me that law types who write poems or like
poetry think that poems that actually relate to the law are interesting.
Stevens certainly didn't, you can't find law in his work, just the
opposite. What is most interesting to me is the idea that people
working in the law somehow find the time and energy to write and publish
poems that stand freely away from law, though the poems are undoubtedly
influenced, as any poems are, by the poet's regular daily life.
Barbara J. Davis
Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
Barbara J. Davis / Director of Library Resources
Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
425 Walnut Street, Suite 1800
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-3957
Tel: 513.381.2838 . Fax: 513.381.0205
Direct: 513.357.9403 . Cell: 513.253.6888
www.taftlaw.com / davisb@taftlaw.com
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From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On
Behalf Of Dennis Kim-Prieto
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Jerry_Stephens@ca10.uscourts.gov; law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: [LAW-LIB:54134] Re: Poetry of the law
Dear Jerry:
I (and perhaps Professor Thomas Grey) would likely (but severally) refer
you to the work of Wallace Stevens, a graduate of the New York Law
School, a member of the New York Bar, and for many years, an executive
with (and ultimately, vice-president of) the Hartford Insurance Company.
Find more about Professor Grey's work here:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/GREWAL.html
Learn more about Wallace Stevens' life and work here:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/124
You may also be interested in a variety of posts found on the Volokh
Conspiracy blog that focus on poetry and the law. Unfortunately, much
of what they reproduce strikes my ear as poetastic, as that forum tends
to favor more traditional verse forms than those practiced by Stevens
and other High Modernists. But this is my own aesthetic judgment:
YMMV, as the kids like to say.
Finally, you should also look at the Legal Studies Forum. This journal
publishes literary work that focuses on the law, as well as critical
work on law-and-literature. That journal's editor, Professor James
Elkins, also maintains a website featuring lawyer-poets, entitled
"Strangers to Us All." Find that website here:
http://myweb.wvnet.edu/~jelkins/lp-2001/intro/
This topic is of personal interest to me, as I completed my M.F.A. with
a concentration in poetry at the University of Iowa, years before I
returned to that campus to take my J.D. there. As such, I would be
delighted to join you (and any other interested parties) in an extended
discussion of poetry and the law off of the general LAW-LIB list.
Best regards,
dkp
Dennis Kim-Prieto, J.D., M.S.L.I.S., M.F.A.
Reference Librarian
Rutgers School of Law -- Newark
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
(v)++973.353.3037
(f)++973.353.1574
*****************************************************
Member, Copyright Committee
American Association of Law Libraries
>>> <Jerry_Stephens@ca10.uscourts.gov> 11/28/07 9:05 AM >>>
Nate Oman posted an entry about poetry on the blog "Concurring Opinion"
yesterday. Oman wrote that lawers and judges frequently write of the
"poetry of the law." He identified one specific piece written by Edgar
Lee Masters in his Spoon River Anthology. Oman also noted that Masters
did
practice law in Chicago and did include a number of legal references in
the anthology.
Here's the link:
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/11/the_poetry_of_t.html#
more
I am curious about this notion of the "poetry of the law." Can you help
me identify any other poems with a law-related theme or subject matter?
I will admit up front that I am much more attracted to poetry now that
I'm older. But I am still somewhat poetry-challenged when I stray beyond
the more widely known and appreciated poetry.
Jerry E. Stephens
U.S.Court of Appeals
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
email: jerry_stephens@ca10.uscourts.gov
personal: jstephens6@cox.net
voice: (405) 609-5460
fax: (405) 609-5461
cell: (405) 834-1408
"A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000 word document and calls it a
brief."
--Franz Kafka
"I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt."
--Marshall McLuhan
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