• Home
  • About
  • Media
  • Publications
  • Consulting
  • Blog
  • Contact
Menu

Jordan Elgrably

the politics of culture
  • Home
  • About
  • Media
  • Publications
  • Consulting
  • Blog
  • Contact

THE LITERARY LIFE; Daily Journal is on the case for poetic lawyers

April 4, 2004

Los Angeles Times | Christine N. Ziemba

Have you heard the one about the lawyer who writes poetry? The folks at the Daily Journal have—and to them, poetry is no joke.

The legal newspaper is to California lawyers as <em>Variety</em> is to studio execs: It's a serious-minded publication dedicated to deals, decisions and the art of jurisprudence. But to enliven its usual buttoned-down pages, the paper recently launched "Barristers and Bards," a weekly poetry column.

In his introduction, Martin Berg, the San Francisco edition's editor in chief (and now poetry editor), writes, "Both lawyers and poets often deal with conflict and complex emotions, in the context of precise language and form." The poetry column, he notes, is a way to show readers "another dimension of the lives of lawyers."

Lawyer-poets have a strong lineage in American history. Wallace Stevens, Edgar Lee Masters and Archibald MacLeish all practiced law; Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

There's a myth that lawyers' briefs and articles are "badly written, verbose and in Latin," says the L.A. edition's legal editor Jordan Elgrably. Another misconception, he adds, is that lawyers are "not good with language, except for arguments.

"So the Daily Journal is a perfect forum to expose the work [of lawyer-poets] to a wider public."

The column's inaugural poem, "Commonwealth v. Wright" by Philadelphia attorney Richard S. Bank, describes a young girl's tragic death in language as eloquent as many a closing argument: "A few days before the incident / Lorraine, age thirteen / had come to Mrs. Fanning's apartment/ in the middle of the night / with her brothers and sisters still in bedclothes / explaining that the appellant had attempted / some sort of sexual contact...."

Although Bank's poem has a legal focus, "Barristers and Bards" is not limited to court sonnets or blank verse from the bar. Anyone with a law degree can submit a poem.

The practice of law is not mandatory. The practice of poetry is.

← Food and Conflict Merge On Stage in 'The Arab-Israeli Cookbook'Love and the Summer War from an Arab Perspective →

A few recent posts...

Featured
Jul 12, 2023
On My Encounter With Milan Kundera, RIP
Jul 12, 2023
Jul 12, 2023
Apr 7, 2020
What Are We Going to Do About Our Democracy?
Apr 7, 2020
Apr 7, 2020
Mar 29, 2020
Our Once-in-a-Century Pandemic
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020
After 40 Years, Arab-Jewish Coexistence is Still on My Mind!
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 22, 2020
Land of Poets and Bones: Spain’s Desmemoria
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020
Feb 15, 2020
Septemberland, How to Find Your Way in a Post-9/11 Dystopian World
Feb 15, 2020
Feb 15, 2020
Oct 18, 2017
Will the Harvey Weinstein Scandal Prove to Be a Watershed Moment?
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017
Feb 28, 2017
My Birthday Wish: A Day Without War, A Day of Peace
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017
Nov 14, 2016
Cody Blackbird Band plays Atascadero's Last Stage West for "water protectors"
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016
Oct 19, 2016
Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature?
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016

Fresh Tweets


Notes on 9/11

fourteen years on

 

During the summer of 2001, with other Americans of Middle Eastern heritage, I created a cultural arts center for the Middle East, but then in the aftermath of September 11th, the U.S. went to war against Afghanistan and later Iraq, ostensibly to pursue the terrorists who hit us, but in reality, to expand the American empire and exert more geopolitical control over the Middle East.

Despite the fact that in March 2003, millions of people around the world were out in the streets, vigorously protesting for peace to stave off Bush’s impending invasion of Iraq, the U.S. went in anyway, with catastrophic results. Ultimately we helped to destroy a modern country and leave a security vacuum that allowed for the rise of Daesh, or the Islamic State, and for the expansion of other barbarisms. Should anyone have been surprised?

As James Baldwin said in a conversation I had with him for The Paris Review, “Insofar as the American public creates a monster, they are not about to recognize it. You create a monster and destroy it. It is part of the American way of life, if you like.” 

Yes, we created a monster whom we then destroyed, for we backed strongman Saddam Hussein in the 1970s and goaded him into war against Iran in the 1980s, only to beat him back in the 1990s, and eliminate him in 2003.

PEACE WITH IRAN WINS!

This history is relevant today, of all anniversaries of 9/11, because we have just yesterday narrowly avoided another potential calamity—the war with Iran that the hawks and Israel seem to want the way salivating dogs want a meal of steak and gristle. We can celebrate today the fact that with the Iran nuclear deal—approved not only by the U.S. but by Britain, France, Russia, Germany and China—we have succeeded where in March 2003, we failed. With Iraq destabilized, Syria coming apart, and Egypt having returned to a state of virtual dictatorship under Sissi, not to mention repressive or failing regimes elsewhere in the region, these are not happy times. Yet we know that the youthful population of the MENA is still clamoring for change and advancement. There is enormous creativity and potential that we must connect with, and support.

.

Site by Echo Parc Creative