One of the few things almost everyone can agree on about contemporary American poetry is that no one can agree on much. At present, poetry is a jumbled landscape, with no single, dominant style and few living figures whose importance is accepted in more than one or two of the art … [Read more...]
The Rediscovery of Luis de Góngora
“But what is this poem about?” This dread question stalks almost every poetry classroom, and it’s vanquished only to return with a tenacity that would intimidate Michael Myers. Most recently, Ernie Lepore, a professor at Rutgers, took a swing at it in The New York Times’s … [Read more...]
Open Mike, Insert Verse
When you imagine a poetry reading, the scene that comes to mind probably doesn’t involve battalions of underwear-slinging admirers. Poetry is supposed to be dusty stuff, the reading of which can inspire even a hyperactive 4-year-old to go gentle into that good nap. And yet here … [Read more...]
Following Words Through a Labyrinth
When the Swedish Academy bestows the Nobel Prize on a Scandinavian poet, it is hard not to be skeptical. After all, the academy has managed to award the prize to three Swedish poets alone, and the last such poet — Harry Martinson in 1974 — was actually a member of the academy at … [Read more...]
When Quoting Verse, One Must Be Terse
Copyright law is so often a matter of guesswork and loopholes, small print and obscure provisions. One such provision, dating from the ’70s, has recently come to the music industry’s attention. “Termination rights” allow musicians to reclaim the copyrights on their songs after 35 … [Read more...]
Dragons Ascendant: George R. R. Martin and the Rise of Fantasy
It’s a high time for high fantasy. Novels about wizards outsell (and often outshine) the most glittering literary fiction titles; the contemporary romantic hero generally sports a pair of fangs; and even now the five remaining earthlings who haven’t read “The Lord of the Rings” … [Read more...]
Lost in the Archives, Summer 1996
“Locality,” said Frost, “gives art.” It’s an aphorism that directs us toward, well, directions. But when we’re talking about space, we’re also usually talking about time—which means it’s important to think about when, not just where, an artist finds the locality that’s going to … [Read more...]
The Elements of Style
The achievement of a style is like the achievement of an individual poem writ large: it’s a delicate balance of confidence and guesswork, as the writer simultaneously relies on what’s worked in the past, bets on what might work right now and tries to leave a little room for … [Read more...]
Lost in the Archives, December 1985
Philip Larkin was the first poet I understood. He wasn’t the first poet I could write a reasonably coherent college essay about (that was probably George Herbert), nor was he the first poet whose poems I memorized (Vachel Lindsay, although in fairness, I was twelve). But Larkin … [Read more...]
"If you imagine a Martian coming down and listening to OutKast, the Martian is going to be totally perplexed. Unless OutKast has more experience in outer space than I think they do." —Interview with Gregg LaGambina in The Onion A.V. Club … [Read more...]
Lost in the Archives, Spring 1974
In the poetry world, this was a season of uncertainty and transition, as seasons in the poetry world so often are. The popularity of the “deep image” style associated with James Wright and W. S. Merwin was just beginning to wane; John Ashbery was on the brink of arriving at his … [Read more...]
Beach Reading: A Notebook
This essay originally appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of Poetry Magazine. If you were compiling a list of Places Appropriate for Poetic Thoughts, the beach probably would rank somewhere near the top, on par with “in a dark wood” and well above “in an Outback Steakhouse.” … [Read more...]
Housing Works Event
National Poetry Month: Poetry and the Public with David Orr Monday, April 11, 2011 at 7:00 PM Housing Works Bookstore Cafe 126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 Map, Directions … [Read more...]
Interview: “Modern poetry made less terrifying”
“It comes from writing for the Times, and the Times' very large, very strange audience. That has made me especially sensitive to how, as a poetry critic, a lot of the things you say not only aren't understood but aren't understood almost in the way that you wouldn't understand a … [Read more...]
Oprah Magazine’s Adventures in Poetry
The signs of the coming apocalypse are many, but none are starker than this Web headline in the April issue of O: The Oprah Magazine: “Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.” Yes. Spring fashion. Modeled. By rising young poets. There follows a photomontage of attractive … [Read more...]
NY Observer Spring Arts Preview
“David Orr knows how to get that rare thing for poetry: public attention.” —Daniel D'Addario, “Spring Arts Preview: Top Ten Books” at The New York Observer … [Read more...]
Lemon Hound
“A good review is a persuasive judgment entertainingly delivered. Criticism itself is a broader category, and includes exploratory essays, polemics, advocacy, whither-the-poets-of-yesteryears and so forth. Poetry has plenty of critics, but fewer reviewers than it probably … [Read more...]
Maxine Hong Kingston’s Life in Verse
Why would anyone want to be a poet? If that question seems too broad (or too harsh), let’s try a more modest one: Why would someone who’s already mastered an art form that is vastly more influential and lucrative than poetry — fiction or songwriting, for example — want to be a … [Read more...]
About the Author
David Orr is the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review. He is the winner of the Nona Balakian Prize from the National Book Critics Circle and the Editor’s Prize for Reviewing from Poetry magazine. Orr’s writing has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Believer, … [Read more...]
Frequently Asked Questions
These are questions I’ve been asked. Frequently. The list may change as circumstances dictate. How does someone become a poetry critic? In my case, someone really didn’t want to read his Property textbook in law school. So someone lunged at any excuse not to do so, such as the … [Read more...]
Praise from Publishers Weekly
“The reader accompanies Orr as he rambles amusingly and engagingly around today’s poetry culture, looking for consensus as to, say, what a poem means.” —Michael Coffey, Publishers Weekly … [Read more...]
Praise from Harold Bloom
“David Orr is an authentic iconoclast. His criticism is exuberant and original. Dr. Johnson, my critical hero, urged us to clear our mind of cant. Orr has cleared his. He will enhance the perception of his readers. And he wins my heart by his love for Edward Lear.” —Harold Bloom … [Read more...]
Praise from Tom Perrotta
“As his title suggests, David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one, engaged in a passionate and at times contentious dialogue with both the literary world and the culture at large. Beautiful & Pointless is a clear-eyed, … [Read more...]
Praise from August Kleinzahler
“Amidst the bilge, posturing and chicanery emanating from that parallel universe, the institutional world of foundations, academies, societies, endowments, programs, committees and panels; along with the attendant pieties, bogus reputations and notions of decorum that nowadays … [Read more...]
Poetry And, Of, and About
The anthology on my desk is titled Poetry of the Law: From Chaucer to the Present, edited by David Kader (a law professor at Arizona State) and Michael Stanford (a public defender in Phoenix). I’m both a lawyer and a poetry critic, so asking me to discuss this book would seem to … [Read more...]