Convictions : poetry

Convictions' Poetry Slam: Final Round

Diane Marie Amann — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:29:00 GMT

As we segue to May, the month set aside to mark Better Sleep, Good Car Care, Photography, Salad, Eggs, and Barbecue—I kid you not—let's end April's Convictions Poetry Slam with one last post on law and poetry.

Turns out it's the subject of Law and Poetry, 11 Roger Wms. L. Rev. 353 (2006), by Edward J. Eberle and Bernhard Grossfeld, law professors at Roger Williams and Universität Münster, respectively. In addition to discussing some of the questions that Kenji and I explored, the article includes a number of passages mentioned here this month. To talk of Justice Harry A. Blackmun and baseball and of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the flag, the authors add Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt's quotation of the anti-lynching ballad Strange Fruit in n.14 of his dissent in a capital punishment case. The article continues with many more examples of ways that law influences poetry and that poetry influences law. I leave you with one such quote, from "Variations on Variations on a Theme" by Lawrence Joseph, a St. John's law professor:

And that's the law. To bring to light
most hidden depths. The juror screaming
defendant's the devil staring at her
making her insane. The intense strain
phrasing the truth, the whole truth, nothing
but sentences, endless sentences.

Presidents and poetry: Slam round 6

Diane Marie Amann — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:47:00 GMT

First by picking up the gauntlet I'd thrown down, and then by arguing that President George W. Bush is the most Shakespearean of The 43, Kenji's made 2 immeasurable contributions to this month's Convictions Poetry Slam.

I tend to agree with Kenji that the overt mixing of poetry and law can be ill-advised: adding the former often will not enhance analysis in the latter. Yet the deployment of poetry – or any literary reference, for that matter – serves to reveal something about the legal writer who deploys it. Justice Harry A. Blackmun's homage to Casey at the Bat, no less than Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's tribute to Barbara Frietchie in the 1st flag-burning case, told much about each author's approach to the subject matter at bar. Some observers may not welcome what is revealed; these 2 examples, for instance, might be seen as evidence that a Justice lacked detachment and thus engaged in less than rational reasoning. (That conclusion is not inevitable – consider those studies that refute the commonly held assumption that emotion clouds jurors' judgment.) Adding literature to law may serve, moreover, to make more humanly accessible a process seldom understood by those humans whom it most affects.

Kenji's right, too, that the best law poetry may be those lines that we commit to memory not because of some intentionally catchy cadence, but rather because their simplicity belies a deeper social meaning. The warnings set forth in Miranda v. Arizona surely qualify. Another nominee jumps to mind. It is the essence of another opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren, a line on which Brown v. Board of Education and all its progeny depend. If I may be indulged a bit of verse, it is:

Separate

educational facilities

are

inherently unequal.

As for W., the verbal contributions that Kenji cites link this President with another W. besides Shakespeare. To this ear, the inestimable "misunderestimate" inevitably recalls "normalcy," the once-abnormal word for which America owes a debt to President Warren G. Harding.

3rd Inning, Convictions Poetry Slam

Diane Marie Amann — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

With the White Sox on a three-game win streak and tied for first in their division, seems as good a time as any to play inning No. 3 of Convictions Poetry Slam.

Today's Poetry Month nominee represents the most straightforward of the Slam's categories: No. 1, "use of poetry in legal writing, by judges, lawyers, or legal scholars." Waxing poetic is the late Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, a lifelong National League fan. Blackmun's 1972 pæan to baseball, Flood v. Kuhn, included a famous footnote 4:

Millions have known and enjoyed baseball. One writer knowledgeable in the field of sports almost assumed that everyone did until, one day, he discovered otherwise:
"I knew a cove who'd never heard of Washington and Lee,"
"Of Caesar and Napoleon from the ancient jamboree,"
"But, bli'me, there are queerer things than anything like that,"
"For here's a cove who never heard of 'Casey at the Bat'!"
"* * * *"
"Ten million never heard of Keats, or Shelley, Burns or Poe;"
"But they know 'the air was shattered by the force of Casey's blow';"
"They never heard of Shakespeare, nor of Dickens, like as not,"
"But they know the somber drama from old Mudville's haunted lot."
"He never heard of Casey! Am I dreaming? Is it true?"
"Is fame but windblown ashes when the summer day is through?"
"Does greatness fade so quickly and is grandeur doomed to die"
"That bloomed in early morning, ere the dusk rides down the sky?"
—"He Never Heard of Casey" Grantland Rice, The Sportlight, New York Herald Tribune, June 1, 1926, p. 23.

Blackmun's equally famous Footnote 5 continued in-verse, quoting the "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" refrain from Franklin Pierce Adams' "Baseball's Sad Lexicon."

In all, a boldly boyish use of poetry in legal reasoning.

To the rest of the Convictions team and all those in our virtual stands: Batter Up.

Convictions Poetry Slam: Entry No. 2

Diane Marie Amann — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:57:00 GMT

Kudos to Berkeley 2L Josh Keesan for rising to the challenge of nominating "law poetry" for the National Poetry Month-long Convictions Poetry Slam announced yesterday. Josh's entry fits neatly within Slam example No. 2, "poems about law or about law's effect on society." It's "Law Like Love," written by W.H. Auden, the poet who was born in England in 1907, became a U.S. citizen after serving in the Spanish Civil War, and died in Vienna in 1973.

The full poem, perhaps a wee bit long for a blog, can be read here (along with a great comment thereafter). Let me proffer a few choice stanzas:

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

....

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

....

Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.

Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

Great stuff, Josh; thanks. The erstwhile-student-of-Sherman-Act-remedies-in-me loves the "treble tongue" metaphor. Now: Who among my fellow Convicted is ready to take from Josh the Poetry Slam baton?

Convictions Poetry Slam

Diane Marie Amann — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:25:00 GMT

Today begins National Poetry Month, no foolin'. Given concerns voiced here about the blindering of America's lawyers, how about honoring this "cruellest month" with a Convictions Poetry Slam? Let's hear nominations for best, or worst, law poetry. By "law poetry" I mean:

use of poetry in legal writing, by judges, lawyers, or legal scholars
poems about law, or about law's effect on society
passages of prose that, intentionally or not, are poetic

To mark the month over at IntLawGrrls I reprinted America by Gertrude Stein. With effort that poem might be shoehorned into example No. 2. But it's not a great fit, and in any event I'd rather kick off our slam with this snippet, representing example No. 3:

The facts of this
case
are, we must
hope,
extraordinary.

Michael H. v. Gerald D. (1989), by Antonin Scalia

More to come as the month unfolds; looking forward to your entries.