As first reported at the Legal Writing Prof blog (and with a Hat Tip to star legal writing professor Linda Edwards), Billy Collins’ poem Introduction to Poetry “holds well as an analogy for teaching 1Ls to read cases.”
As first reported at the Legal Writing Prof blog (and with a Hat Tip to star legal writing professor Linda Edwards), Billy Collins’ poem Introduction to Poetry “holds well as an analogy for teaching 1Ls to read cases.”
When I was studying poetry at BU, we read that poem. It’s always been one of my favorites. Still, I never really thought about it as applicable to cases until you and Professor Edwards brought this up, so good call on that.
(Still, perhaps if the courts wrote in clearer language, we’d be able to follow Collins’ advice a bit better 🙂 )
This is a great poem!
Thanks.
I had never read it, and I really like it. I am glad to hear that you both do too.
It is a lovely poem. It speaks to interpretation generally, and we should confront the possibility that lawyers sometimes may be law torturers more than law explorers.
Wow – you are spot on in analogizing this poem to 1Ls reading and understanding cases.
When I was studying poetry at BU, we read that poem. It’s always been one of my favorites.