Biography of Posner reveals his childhood nickname and 'Poze knows' teen catchphrase
Oxford University Press.
Judge Richard Posner cooperated with biographer William Domnarski for a new biography that reveals the catchphrase he coined for himself as a teen (“the Poze knows”) and his childhood nickname (“the brain”).
Domnarski tells Above the Law that Posner provided 10 to 12 hours of interviews, childhood memorabilia and contacts from as far back as grade school. Domnarski interviewed about 200 people and read most everything Posner has written.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a few tidbits from the book, including the “Poze knows” catchphrase and childhood nickname. Posner was “a wunderkind teenager” who taught a geometry class at his principal’s request when the teacher was ill for a couple weeks, Law Blog says.
As a youth, Posner went to a Communist camp for a summer (his father was a Communist Party member and his mother “a militant feminist activist,” according to the Law Blog). Posner’s mother read him Homer’s Odyssey and Shakespeare when he was young, and he entered Yale at the age of 16.
At Yale, Posner told a colleague in a letter, he was a “disrespectful brat” who challenged a teacher who gave him a B minus with a 1,700-word rejoinder. He has described himself as a “monster” on more than one occasion, and once defined monsters as “specimens of warped humanity” such as “Wagner, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Proust, Kafka, Newton and Michelangelo”
Above the Law asks Domnarski what kinds of lessons Posner’s example can provide for lives or careers. Domnarski’s answer: “Work harder and always be driven by the question of what makes the most sense. These are the two biggest lessons I learned from my time working on Posner. I also learned to ask the tough questions of judges, about whether they are working hard enough and bringing inquiry rather than ego to their work.”
