Poetry of the Law: From Chaucer to the Present

Since the time of Blackstone's "Farewell," poetry has been seen as celestial, pastoral, solitary, and mellifluous; law as venerable, social, urban, and cacophonous. This perception has persisted even to the present, with the bourgeoning field of law and literature focusing almost exclusively on fiction and drama. "Poetry of the Law," however, reveals the richness of poetry about the law. "Poetry of the Law" is the first serious anthology of law-related poetry ever published in the United States. As the editors make clear, though, "serious" need not imply "solemn." Instead, David Kader and Michael Stanford have assembled a surprisingly capacious collection of 100 poems from the 1300s to the present. Set in courtrooms, lawyers' offices, law-school classrooms, and judges' chambers; peopled with attorneys, the imprisoned (both innocent and guilty), judges, jurors, witnesses, and law-enforcement officers; based on real events (think "Scottsboro") or exploring the complexity of abstract legal ideas; the poems celebrate justice or decry the lack of it, ranging in tone from witty to wry, sad to celebratory, funny to infuriating. "Poetry of the Law" is destined to become an authoritative source for years to come. Contributors Include: W. H. Auden Robert Burns Lewis Carroll John Ciardi Daniel Defoe Emily Dickinson John Donne Rita Dove Ralph Waldo Emerson Martin 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 from "The Hanging Judge" by Eavan Boland Come to the country where justice is seen to be done, Done daily. Come to the country where Sentence is passed by word of mouth and raw Boys split like infinitives. Look, here We hanged our son, our only son And hang him still and still we call it law.