Reading Poets

Lawrence Joseph, the poet, has been the subject of a symposium published by the University of Cincinnati Law Review. Lawrence Joseph, the nonfiction novelist, has been similarly honored by the Columbia Law Review. With the publication of The Game Changed, his work should be so recognized and he should be given scholarly attention as a critic/essayist. Joseph the lawyer/poet/scholar has developed a jurisprudence of his own. Joseph’s jurisprudence, however (and to the good), cannot be reduced to a single word like originalism, or even a label like liberal democratic (though he may be in fact). Rather, the resultant jurisprudence refracts off a multitude of ideas and attitudes contained within the book’s various prose pieces. In this Essay, I will first describe the mechanics of The Game Changed, and will then identify and briefly comment upon several of those ideas and attitudes that comprise Joseph’s jurisprudence that go Into It