Meet Monica Youn, the Princeton creative writing professor who was one of Beyoncé’s lawyers
‘Bruce Springsteen is a lovely man’
Some Princeton professors are just crazy awesome, from literary villain and bad-ass Renaissance man Anthony Grafton, to the English department’s beloved Jeff Nunokawa.
Creative writing professor Monica Youn, a Princeton alum, definitely falls into this elite category of legendary profs. She graduated one year behind Ted Cruz, in the class of 1993, with an undergraduate degree in the Woodrow Wilson school and a certificate in creative writing. Youn then went on to Oxford University to obtain an English degree, and finally found herself at Yale Law.
After that, she juggled her love of poetry with her legal career. While she dedicated herself to representing A-list celebs like Beyoncé in copyright lawsuits and worked pro bono cases for non-profits seeking fairer voter ID laws, she also published critically acclaimed collections of poems. We’re impressed.
Why did you decide to pursue a career in law after graduating?
I had gone to Princeton originally to study law. I had grown up as the child of immigrants from Korea, and immigrants tend to have very defined notions of career paths. Also while growing up, I was one of those little girls who just liked to argue.
You were on the debate team with Ted Cruz while at Princeton – what was that like?
He was a very good debater, and I took over training the team from him. We were on perfectly civil terms – he was not nearly as confrontational then as he is now. I know a lot of people who have gone into politics – like Cory Booker, who is the senator of New Jersey, is a friend of mine, as are the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of Rhode Island. He [Cruz] is not particularly out of the ordinary in that way. But he has definitely surprised me the most with the how he turned out – I’m surprised by the positions he’s taken. He was less extreme when I knew him.
How did you choose entertainment law in particular?
I was a writer at Princeton, very interested in the written text. I did a degree in English at Oxford, and I thought that with that background, copyright law made sense. When I got out of law school and was looking for a way to practice, the only way to do that was in entertainment. I mostly focused on music law, but occasionally I worked with TV and film.
What’s the scene of celebrity law like? Was it glamorous?
Undoubtedly, there were things that were very glamorous about it. Our firm always had an invitation to the Grammy Awards, and I got to watch the Black Sabbath reunion from the stage. You met a lot of celebrities. Some of them were extremely charming – Bruce Springsteen is a lovely man. Some of them were much less charming, and acted like children.
It was in the early days of music and the internet – the record industry was changing very rapidly. There was a lot going on, and I had a great time doing it.
Is it true that you represented Beyoncé when you were working as a lawyer? What was it like working with her?
Yes, I was one of the lawyers who represented her for a contract dispute involving one of her modeling product gigs for L’Oreal. She and I bonded over being from Houston, Texas. She actually lives right around the corner from where I went to high school!
Do you like Beyonce’s music? What do you think about her recent video and the general reactions to it?
I have always loved her music. Of course – she’s great. I think that now she’s really coming into a new confidence about who she is as a star, a performer and a leader. It’s terrific to see her take ownership of her own image.
When and why did you decide to dedicate yourself entirely to writing?
When I got to law school, I was so miserable about not writing that I started looking for ways to continue. So I applied and won something called the Stegner fellowship in poetry at Stanford – Tracy K. Smith was actually a year ahead of me in the fellowship. It was a two year fellowship in creative writing, paid. At the time I had actually accepted a federal clerkship, working for a judge, and I had a moment of crisis – which am I going to do?
I ended up turning down the clerkship, which caused the judge to have a fit. She said she would never hire anyone from my law school again. My parents refused to speak to me for oh, about six months. But I thought I had to do it. I can’t not write.
Those two years helped me pull myself together as a poet, and come up with a lot of the poems that went into my first manuscript. I published that book, which did reasonably well, and then a second book – which was met with critical attention. I also stayed in touch with Paul Muldoon and a couple others in the Creative Writing department at Princeton, and they asked me to come read at a festival they were hosting. They then offered me an opening for a substitute teacher because another professor was going out on maternity leave. I came – it all worked out – and I’ve been here ever since.
Are there any places where the skills needed for poetry and law overlap in your mind?
In both law and poetry, there is a very intensive attention to language. I was a trial lawyer, and that involves a lot of presentation of material in striking and persuasive ways. You’re thinking a lot about word choice and structure.
Poetry can take more risks, each poem creates its own form as it goes along, whether that form chooses to partake in the tradition of established forms or if it does something completely different. You have a certain freedom – you come to the page and you say, I can do whatever I want to with this page.