Lawrence Joseph

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 numerous poetry collections, including Precisely Now (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026); 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 poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at St. John’s University School of Law.