“The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom” newly published by Parallel Press

May 6, 2013
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“The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom,” a chapbook by Thomas J. Erickson.

Parallel Press is pleased to announce the publication of The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom, a new collection of poetry by Thomas J. Erickson ($10.00, Parallel Press, 2013).

In The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom, Erickson’s muscular poems perform a post-mortem on the titular lawyer with unflinching honesty, digging into personal life failures, the noble work defending indigent clients, and the ugly compromises made in order to do so.

The result is a complete and complicated portrait of the human condition, one that circles back on itself to the title poem and demands re-reading. “The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom,” reads as both obituary and elegy, at once acknowledging the futility and necessity of a life’s work: ‘As a young man, he read Camus and resolved / that if God did exist it wouldn’t make any difference… The hundreds of people he represented; / their dramas not worth one whit. / The files waiting in his briefcase / the combination set to open.”

Thomas J. Erickson was born in 1960 and grew up in Kohler, Wisconsin.  He received a BA from Beloit College in English Composition and a law degree from Marquette University.  His poems have appeared in numerous publications including The Los Angeles Review, Quiddity International Literary Review, Mad Poet’s Review, The New Poet, and Slant.  He is an attorney in Milwaukee where he is a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets.  He is the proud father of Charles and John

How to order

The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom  is available for purchase through Parallel Press for $10.00. Discounts are provided for libraries, booksellers, and non-profit organizations.

Questions? Contact Parallel Press: 608-262-1433 or parallelpress@library.wisc.edu