Poetry Of The Law

Contributors Include: W.H. Auden, Robert Burns, Lewis Carroll, John Ciardi, Daniel Defoe, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Rita Dove, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Martín Espada, Thomas Hardy, Seamus Heaney, A.E. Housman, Langston Hughes, Ben Jonson, X.J. Kennedy, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ted Kooser, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Lee Masters, W.S. Merwin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sir Walter Raleigh, Muriel Rukeyser, Carl Sandburg, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Mona Van Duyn, Oscar Wilde, William Carlos Williams.

Poetry. Most of the lawyer poets represented in this anthology are practicing lawyers (and judges); a few abandoned the legal profession to take up teaching or literary work. Unlike most lawyer poets, who do not, in their poetry, explicitly lay claim to being lawyers and maintain a wall of separation between law and poetry, the poets in this anthology do not remain silent about the legal world in which they work. The lawyer poet who would disguise his life as a lawyer is one kind of poet. This anthology represents a rarer specimen, the poet who finds a place for the world of law in his poetry. For this rare species of poet, there's simply no walking away, no pretended separation, and no compartmentalization of the world of the poem and the world of law. The poet knows both worlds, and thus is borne legal verse. Contributors are Lee Wm. Atkinson, Richard Bank, Michael Blumenthal, Ace Boggess, David Bristol, Lee Warner Brooks, MC Bruce, Laura Chalar, James Clarke, Martin Espada, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Katya Giritsky, Howard Gofreed, Nancy A. Henry, Susan Holahan, Paul Homer, Lawrence Joseph, Kenneth King, John Charles Kleefeld, Richard Krech, Bruce Laxalt, David Leightty, John Levy, Greg McBride, James McKenna, Betsy McKenzie, Joyce Meyers, Jesse Mountjoy, Tim Nolan, Simon Perchik, Carl Reisman, Charles Reynard, Steven M. Richman, Lee Robinson, Kristen Roedell, Barbara B. Rollins, Lawrence Russ, Michael Sowder, Ann Tweedy, Charles Williams, Kathleen Winter, and Warren Wolfson.

The place of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) in European literature is assured, and his significance for the development of German philosophy widely acknowledged. Here the focus is more specifically upon his poetics: a body of reflections on the nature of poetry and the meaning of the poet's vocation. These are found in poems and letters, in difficult (and often fragmentary) theoretical writings, and -- in the case of the 'Pindar Fragments' -- texts in which the distinction between poetry and theoretical reflection seems to be overcome. Although Hölderlin's poetics is considered from various points of view, the themes that emerge most frequently are Hölderlin's notion of a 'poetic law' or 'poetic logic', and his conception of tragedy and of what might be called the 'anti-tragic'. Also included is a new translation of Hölderlin's 'Notes' on Sophocles, which are here provided with a commentary. Charles Lewis received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge University. He has taught at Princeton University, and held an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Free University, Berlin.

A haunting lifeline between archive and memory, law and poetry

Presents poems which explore the metaphysical and the ordinary, including "New Heaven, New Earth" in which a person attempts to find a path through dense woods during a blinding blizzard

In this study - the fruit of a lifelong critical and imaginative engagement with W H. Auden's works - Anthony Hecht identifies and traces consistent habits of thought and belief within the poet's extensive and varied writings and through his celebrated conversions and repudiations, literary and otherwise. Hecht acknowledges that Auden's poems "both invite the intrusive scrutiny of the cryptographer and deny him access". Yet the readings he offers of poems from every phase of Auden's career, along with dramatic works and critical essays, manage to explicate and illuminate Auden's rich (and often cryptic) allusiveness without murdering to dissect. Among the themes that connect Auden's works are his deep interest in the workings of language; his notion of the ultimate frivolity of art; his interest in the nature of heroism; his understanding of the relation of public to private life; the development of his religious thought; and what Auden called the "hidden law" that governs human existence - a strict and retaliatory force, something like poetic justice, that gives form to our best literature and shapes our personal fates. Hecht identifies these preoccupations in Auden's work - and shows how they cut across the many genres in which he wrote - without losing sight of each poem's individual history and context. As one of Auden's most distinguished poetic heirs, Anthony Hecht is uniquely qualified to illuminate both the reading and the writing of these essential works of twentieth-century literature.

The perfect gift for the lawyers in your life -- for law school graduation, birthdays, firm holiday gifts, retirement, or just because. More than 70 vignettes from life in the practice of law are rendered here as wryly humorous poems. Each one stands alone as the sort of snapshot one lawyer might forward along to another for a laugh or a knowing nod. Together, they comprise a collection to be treasured by anyone who has lived through law school, first jobs, thrilling victories, eye-opening disappointments, and the lifestyle particular to this career choice. This book is not about laughing at lawyers. It's about laughing with them. It's for everyone who's in on the joke: Everyone who has witnessed the madness and met the quirky characters in this field. Everyone who, even just for a second, has wondered if they should have gone to medical school, culinary school... anything other than law school. Everyone who has ever sat down at the end of an evening and thought, "No one would even believe me if I told them about my day." We believe you. Editorial reviews: "In many of the poems, the authors capture perfectly the oddities of law practice and law school. 'Sisterhood' may be one of the most insightful poems that could be enjoyed within any profession. These poems... took the mundane and made it soar." - Arizona Bar Association "A book of candid truths and palpable honesty, with a sincerity that can only come from experience." - North Carolina Bar Association "A must-read for lawyers persisting in long-term practice who like to keep it light, who continue to muse on the sometimes bizarre world in which a lawyer finds himself or herself, and who simply enjoy a good poem." - Colorado Bar Association Featured on Above the Law and Bitter Lawyer. Named the SmallLaw Pick of the Week by TechnoLawyer. (Authors donate a portion of book proceeds to WomensLaw.org, The WomensLaw Project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.)