“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, opinionated, and idiosyncratic guide to a vibrant but endangered art form, essential reading for anyone who loves poetry, and also for those of us who mostly just admire it from afar.”

—Tom Perrotta