Exercising your creative writing muscle improves your legal writing, along with other benefits. You might even win bragging rights for winning this year’s national Grammar Day Poetry Contest.
Is there a creative bone in your lawyer body?
Every year, ACES: The Society for Editing, runs the National Grammar Day Poetry Contest. The submission window opens February 15 for 13 days. Submit through the form on the website. Multiple submissions are encouraged. There is no entry fee.
The prizes, besides bragging rights, are a one-year membership in ACES: The Society for Editing (we all need to edit our work, amirite?), publicity on the Grammar Girl podcast (no bad publicity for a lawyer), and a signed copy of “Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl (Quick & Dirty Tips).”
Writing Mistakes Can Spark Winning Poetry
Did you ever accidentally type “your” for “you’re,” and your proofreading software didn’t catch it? That happened (minus the intervention of technology) in an early manuscript of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The error inspired Leslie F. Miller to write the poetry contest’s 2024 winning entry.
In a tale by a playwright historic,
A jester from Denmark (not Zurich)
Had always penned “your”
When he’d really meant “you’re”
Now we call him, alas, Poor Yorick.
The 2025 winner, Salma Amanda Latifa, reminds the reader of many of the lessons Get To The Point has preached.
Noun stands firm, giving a name,
Verb takes action, shaping the frame.
Adjective paints colors and hue,
Adverb explains how things ensue.
When you’re ready to rant about word counts or some other lawyer’s sloppy drafting, channel that emotion into a poem. Dashing off a poem can be reassuringly cathartic.
Poetry Improves Your Communication
Attorney At Work has previously advocated reading poetry daily. Like good legal writing, poetry consists of powerful words delivering a concise message. Lawyers need to be good at that.
Exercising your poetic skills can improve your legal writing.
Pulitzer Prize winner and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish was one of several American lawyers who became well-known poets. Richard Moorhead and Mona Arshi are among a bunch of prize-winning lawyer-poets from the UK. There’s no reason why you can’t do it, too.
Enter National Grammar Day Poetry Contest
All poems for the contest must be short. You might be able to put one together in a small number of tenths of an hour. Bill it as professional development?
I will be sharing my lawyerly grammar poetry submissions on National Grammar Day, March 4th.
Get to the Point!
More Writing Tips
Find more good ideas for improving your legal writing and communications skills in “Get to the Point” by Teddy Snyder.
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