THE BEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

from RIPEN THE PAGE LITERARY MAGAZINE

I am a poet and public interest advocate (lawyer, and now clinical professor of law).

Everyday, I work with words, on the page, and as poets like to say – the stage, in order to impart some truth about the lives we lead and the lives that cross my path each day. I try to make it all art: the law, and the literature, the words.

My pages are articles, reviews, poems, and stories I have been lucky enough to publish in a lot of different places. Then there are also the legal papers I have filed for my clients, most of whom could not afford a lawyer. Mostly though, I write letters. It is what I enjoy writing more than anything: letters.

My stages are numerous as well: poetry venues, writer’s conferences, radio programs, a film, and, of course, courts of law, tribunals, public forums.

I have considered quitting the law. I have also thought that poetry (literature) is useless. It is (and has been), at times, emotionally exhausting to encounter individuals having a difficult time in the legal system and also to write about the troubles of the world in my poetry and in my writings. Yet, I cannot quit. It is what I am, and what I have always been even before I became what I am today.

Read the rest of the article here: THE BEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING