Associated Press

11/10/03

Literati side with student's poetic license

SAN FRANCISCO -- A Nobel laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner are among a group of authors urging California's highest Court to overturn the conviction of a San Jose teenager who spent 90 days in juvenile hall for writing poetry deemed too violent.

The state Supreme Court is reviewing the case of George Julius T., prosecuted in 2001 for making threats after he showed at least two classmates a poem with the line "For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school." He was expelled from Santa Teresa High School.

In an amicus brief filed last month, a dozen writers argued on the boy's behalf that violent imagery is a literary device that has been employed by poets as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.

The signatories to the brief included this year's Nobel Laureate, South African novelist J.M. Coetzee, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon.

Poetry, "is an artistic medium particularly well-suited for the examination of one's own potential for depravity," they wrote the court. "The developing genre of 'dark poetry,' as practiced by Julius, is merely a continuation of this literary tradition."

The case has attracted attention from a variety of free-speech and literary groups, including PEN USA, the First Amendment Project and the Youth Law Center.

The Supreme Court has not yet scheduled oral arguments for the case, but the appeal is California's second case in a year dealing with similar free-speech implications.

Last year, a Sacramento-based state appeals court overturned the same type of conviction for a Chico boy who drew a picture of a police officer being shot in the head. That boy was previously arrested by the officer on drug-related charges.

The appeals court, in reversing the conviction in that case, said there was no immediate threat of harm to the officer.