L to the L to the B

It's not a couplet, but it's close. The last sentence I wrote on my Admin final, my last final, summing up a question where I was asked to offer advice on the likelihood of a successful immigration appeal for a Mr. and Mrs. Singh, was not without its own internal rhyme:

"Things aren't looking great for the Singhs."

I'm pretty happy with the 21 pages of answers I wrote before that (yes, the longest exam I've ever written) but I especially like that last line. The cheekiness wasn't intentional, but I think it nicely represents my attitude towards law school: there's a lot of stuff to learn, but there's always room for a sense of humour.

Alright, maybe you wouldn't deliver a client bad news this way, but if writing three years worth of posts on this site has taught me anything, law school has some pretty funny moments.

Anyway, I'm officially done. Now all that's left is to recoup this staggering, staggering debt.

Poet Lawreate

Scandal of scandals, the law school rag, The Legal Eye, is not running the annual Joel Bakan Constitutional Poetry contest this year. For the uninitiated, the contest was created out a UBC law prof's observation that there is no good constitutional poetry anymore (go figure).

Myself being a fan of salacious double entendres and questionable uses of my time, I entered the last two years. I'll post those two entries, along with the third and concluding sonnet here. Feel free to count it out too, that's iambic pentameter for all you Petrarchan sonnet buffs out there:

Bawdy Politic:
A Constitutional Romance in Three Sonnets

From John A. to Connie

Whereas, this humble man enacts desire,
To corporeally unite and sire,
One dominion with thee. This preamble
Is but a missive, a lonely gamble
From one whose heart has oft been rescinded.
Yet with thine love it may be amended,
For a division of powers cannot
Befall an obsession so justly wrought.
Repeal thy dress, and lay with me, entrenched
In passion substantive and lust unquenched.
Against thy body politic, enshrine
We might, this challenged section sixty-nine.
Interpret without ambiguity
Love codified, in perpetuity.

The Constitutional Cuckold

What you call concern, ‘tis emergency,
For matters of love are ancillary
To naught. Whither once was paramountcy
Now you deign not, gaze yonder, to mount me!
Whose pith and substance hath int’rested thee,
Made me incidental, torn symmetry
Asunder? Why forsake my dominion,
Central for so long, for province of sin?
But hark! Ye o’erlook a double aspect,
Mine own trade and commerce with fairer sex.
Long hath I played Zellerbach to pristine
Waters of yours. Now I turn to doctrine.
I’m held immune by Ninety-One’s success,
While thee made whore of multiple access.

A Trial Separation of Powers

Is love spent? Doth my East alienate
Your West? A decision to separate
Cannot have majority from two, lest
Dissent descend to where I lay - madness.
Recall, I was your body’s First Nation,
Kind, sui generis confed’ration,
Ere our pairing ‘twas discriminated,
Struck down, failed Oakes, unenumerated.
So, this “loving tree” shall be felled. Marry
Again I shan’t. Instead, unitary
Governance I’ll seek, unless you’ll regard,
One last entreaty from this heart’s Hansard.
Would ye consider menagerie as
Tri-partite system? Too ultra vires?

Ah yes, the AJBCPC

Take the time to brush up on last year's Constitutional poem folks, because I've got another one for you. Yes, once again it's the Annual Joel Bakan Constitutional Poetry Contest, which is neither a contest with any discernible prize beyond publication (click here for the original article) - nor is it, as far as I can tell, even read by professor Joel Bakan.

Anyway, my entry this year is sort of an unofficial sequel to last year's poem, tracing budding love to a failed relationship. All written with a dirty mind of course.

For those of you who've taken Federalism, hopefully you'll get the jokes. For those of you who haven't, I've taken the liberty of providing informative links, thereby having the dual effect of exhausting any humour you might have found and simultaneously reaffirming your opinion of me as a nerd.

Ahem.

The Constitutional Cuckold

What you call concern, ‘tis emergency,
For matters of love are ancillary
To naught. Whither once was paramountcy
Now you deign not, gaze yonder, to mount me!
Whose pith and substance hath int’rested thee,
Made me incidental, torn symmetry
Asunder? Why forsake my dominion,
Central for so long, for province of sin?
But hark! Ye o’erlook a double aspect,
Mine own trade and commerce with fairer sex.
Long hath I played Zellerbach to pristine
Waters of yours. Now I turn to doctrine.
I’m held immune by Ninety-One’s success,
While thee made whore of multiple access.

Previously: From John A. to Connie

Two winning poems in two years. And no, I haven't learned any lesson from the Matrix films, so expect a trilogy.

You should have seen the look on your face

While it's not a half-hour comedy in primetime television, I have had some creative output broadcast in a form other than this blog. UBC's own Legal Eye recently featured the inaugural "Joel Bakan Constitutional Law Poetry Contest." Two footnotes: yes, that is the same Joel Bakan responsible for the documentary The Corporation (he is a professor at the law school here) and second, the contest was markedly missing both a definitive winner and any sort of prize.

Nonetheless, a little ditty I wrote is featured alongside some other poetical works, which I will reproduce here. In all its iambic pentametry, I present to you, faithful reader, the first (as far as I can tell) constitutional love sonnet:

From John A. to Connie

Whereas, this humble man enacts desire,
To corporeally unite and sire
One dominion with thee. This preamble
Is but a missive, a lonely gamble
From one whose heart has oft been rescinded.
Yet with thine love it may be amended,
For a division of powers cannot
Befall an obsession so justly wrought.
Repeal thy dress, and lay with me, entrenched
In passion substantive and lust unquenched.
Against thy body politic, enshrine
We might, this challenged section sixty-nine.
Interpret without ambiguity
Love codified, to perpetuity.

For its form, I credit Spenser, for its crude content, John Donne, and its nerdiness - that's all me, baby. When these terms are thrown at you constantly in Legal Institutions class, you do the best you can with them. (And for those curious, section 69 of the Constitution is far less lascivious than I have portrayed: it simply mandates that the province of Quebec has a legislature. A steamy legislature no doubt!!)

As for my comment about a TV show in primetime, I'm hoping this is not so far off. My Team Awesome partner (a.k.a. "the Baron") brought to my attention a new addition to our law library, The Screenwriter's Legal Guide. I've skimmed through it, and will certainly purchase it. This is precisely what I need going into the summer as I finish off the screenplay. It would be a shame to send it out and lose ownership, so with this book and the culmination of my first year knowledge (limited though it may be) I will seek to protect it.

Alright, I can't lie. It is April Fool's after all. Section 69 of the Constitution doesn't deal with Quebec's legislature, but Ontario's! Boy I got you good!