Archives
Inaugural U.S. law and poetry conference to take place at Illinois
Andrea Lynn, Humanities
Editor
217-333-2177; andreal@illinois.edu
Released
2/12/07
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —
The first U.S. conference to explore and celebrate the relationship
between law and poetry will be held at the University of Illinois Feb.
15-16.
The conference, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Opening
Arguments: Poetry and the Law.” Events include panel discussions,
presentations, readings and workshops.
Sponsors are the U. of I. College
of Law, the MFA
Creative Writing Program and Richard
Powers, the Swanlund Professor of English and the author of nine
novels, including “The Echo Maker,” which won the 2006 National
Book Award for fiction.
Carl Reisman, a Champaign-Urbana lawyer and author of the poetry collection
“Kettle,” is the conference organizer.
In addition to Reisman, the participants:
• James Elkins, a professor at the West Virginia University College
of Law, the editor of the Legal Studies Forum and of “Off the
Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers”
• Rachel Contreni Flynn, a Chicago lawyer and the author of “Ice,
Mouth, Song,” which won the 2003 Dorsett Prize
• Timothy Nolan, a construction and real estate litigation lawyer
and partner at Rider, Bennett LLP in Minneapolis and a poet whose work
has been published in The Nation, Ploughshares and Poetry East
• Frank Pommersheim, who specializes in American Indian law at
the University of South Dakota School of Law and is the author of three
poetry collections and of “Braid of Feathers: American Indian
Law and Contemporary Tribal Life”
• Evie Shockley, a professor at Rutgers University, a former environmental
lawyer at Sidley & Austin in Chicago and the author of “a
half-red sea” and “The Gorgon Goddess”
Reisman said he noticed, after practicing law for a decade, that many
lawyers seemed to “suffer from depression and other mental afflictions.”
He decided to organize a conference on poetry and law, showcasing poetry-writing
lawyers and judges, because he thought such an event might help law
students “gain some courage that they could pursue their passion
for writing and still be lawyers – perhaps even better, healthier
ones.”
He said he also hopes that students, lawyers and judges who attend “will
be inspired to examine their own lives, the ways that they might follow
their own lights.”
Very little of the poetry to be read during the conference will relate
to the practice of law, Reisman said. The discussions will focus on
“what it means to practice both as poet and lawyer, how one impacts
the other.” One such discussion is a talk Nolan will give on how
Abraham Lincoln was influenced by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves
of Grass.”
Program details
can be found online or by contacting Reisman at creisman61@yahoo.com.
