Newly published: Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers
Wednesday March 24, 2004
from James R. Elkins of the West Virginia University College of Law:
“The Legal Studies Forum, a interdisciplinary journal which in recent years has focused on literature, film, and popular culture, announces publication of its 2004 volume, Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers. The anthology, a volume of 732 pages, presents the poetry of 66 lawyers or former lawyers (and one law student). Off the Record is of historical significance as it is the first anthology of lawyers’ poetry ever published, and indeed, is thought to be the first issue of an American law journal devoted exclusively to poetry.”
Professor Elkins is also the author of Strangers to Us All: Lawyers and Poetry, a comprehensive Web index of lawyer-poets in which you will find such names as John Quincy Adams, James Russell Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Joseph Alioto & Martín Espada.
Some people may assume that lawyering & the making of poems are incompatible activities -- we’d remind them that the medium of both is language. The two arts come together in the (quite possibly apocryphal) story about our friend Dayvid Figler, “Poet for the defense,” who is said to have won a case in criminal court with his performance of a summation written entirely in blank verse.
Related articles:
“Poets Work: How do we make a living?,” by Robert Phillips
“Poet as Job,” by Gary Mex Glazner
“The Legal Studies Forum, a interdisciplinary journal which in recent years has focused on literature, film, and popular culture, announces publication of its 2004 volume, Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers. The anthology, a volume of 732 pages, presents the poetry of 66 lawyers or former lawyers (and one law student). Off the Record is of historical significance as it is the first anthology of lawyers’ poetry ever published, and indeed, is thought to be the first issue of an American law journal devoted exclusively to poetry.”
Professor Elkins is also the author of Strangers to Us All: Lawyers and Poetry, a comprehensive Web index of lawyer-poets in which you will find such names as John Quincy Adams, James Russell Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Joseph Alioto & Martín Espada.
Some people may assume that lawyering & the making of poems are incompatible activities -- we’d remind them that the medium of both is language. The two arts come together in the (quite possibly apocryphal) story about our friend Dayvid Figler, “Poet for the defense,” who is said to have won a case in criminal court with his performance of a summation written entirely in blank verse.
Related articles:
“Poets Work: How do we make a living?,” by Robert Phillips
“Poet as Job,” by Gary Mex Glazner
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