Lawrence Joseph

1948 –

Poet, critic, essayist, and professor of law, Lawrence Joseph, was born on March 10, 1948, in Detroit. He received his BA and JD from the University of Michigan. He also earned a BA and MA in English from Cambridge University.

Joseph is the author of a number of poetry collections, including A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020); So Where Are We? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017); Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos: Poems 1973–1993 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005); Into It (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005); Before Our Eyes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993); Curriculum Vitae (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988); and Shouting at No One (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983), which received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. He is also the author of Lawyerland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), a book of prose.

Among Joseph’s awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowships. Joseph lives in New York City and teaches law at St. John’s University School of Law.