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Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry
"David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one. . . . 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 Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer , Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2011
41 people are currently reading
807 people want to read
About the author
David Orr
34 books43 followersDavid 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 Poetrymagazine. Orr’s writing has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Believer, and Pleiades magazine. He holds a B.A. from Princeton and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews
April 3, 2023
Great title. (Check out the parenthesis with "A Guide to Modern Poetry" inside of it.) Dangerous title. (Check out the risk that it, too, may be as pointless as its subject matter.)
Anyway, you could call it a strength or a weakness that this book about poetry is not by a poet but by a poetry critic (they have such things, but I wouldn't advise wanting to be one when you grow up). David Orr carries such a title for the New York Times Book Review, no small change for a kid from South Carolina who cut his teeth on Philip Larkin's poetry (Phil was David's inspiration to become a lifelong poetry reader, an irony only Philip could appreciate more than David).
Intriguing to me was the claim that this was a book for Everyman as opposed to poetry readers (1% of the population) and poets (.12839% of the population). Being a teacher, I can only partially claim the "poetry reader" designation, and having written a couple dozen poems, only four published, I can only partially claim the "poet" designation, too. My best fit? Everyman behaving a little strangely, maybe.*
But nothing in here especially appealed to the populist in me. To start, Orr dissects what it means to be a poet, and what poetry is, and, scalpel, please, I'm not sure Everyman wants to don the surgeon's mask to witness this, really. Then Orr discusses greatness under the cloak of "ambition" -- what makes poetry great, and what poets ARE great. But wait -- if you're Everyman considering poetry for the first time, what's this to you? Isn't it like insiders' jargon with insiders' names?
Then we get the "Form" chapter which (gasp) gets into the architecture of poetry. Hoo boy. Most people don't care how a car works or what's under the hood, they just want it to start when they turn the ignition key and get them safely from A to B when they press the gas pedal, turn the wheel, and apply the brake. Similarly, most non-poets and non-poetry readers do not want to get into the guts of, say, sonnets, they just want to read it and sigh if it hits them in a sweet spot.
Finally, the most niche-driven chapter of all, "Fishbowl." Here Orr got into the debate of poetry belonging to the outsider/Lone Wolf as opposed to belonging to that new poetic beast, the product of academia endorsed and perpetuated by OTHER products of academia. Poetry workshops. MFAs. Blurbs. You love my book and I'll love yours. Some lesser poet reaches out to you, you quickly tell her to "stay in her lane." Et cetera with enjambment.
I loved the closing of the book, however. In it, Orr recounts his younger days, how he met poetry (it wasn't on-line!), and how he and his dying father shared poetry even though his dad, like most of our dads, wouldn't know the technical details of poetry if he tripped over it. Great stuff, and a great closing, because it speaks to what poetry really is for most readers.
Which is odd, really, because I read so many good books that don't know how to end, either, yet here I read a so-so book of criticism that not only knows it but nails it. So let that be your incentive (or not). If you love poetry, you MAY love this book. Or not. Damned if I know. You're on your own, kind of like white chickens in the rain when they peck by red wheelbarrows....
Anyway, you could call it a strength or a weakness that this book about poetry is not by a poet but by a poetry critic (they have such things, but I wouldn't advise wanting to be one when you grow up). David Orr carries such a title for the New York Times Book Review, no small change for a kid from South Carolina who cut his teeth on Philip Larkin's poetry (Phil was David's inspiration to become a lifelong poetry reader, an irony only Philip could appreciate more than David).
Intriguing to me was the claim that this was a book for Everyman as opposed to poetry readers (1% of the population) and poets (.12839% of the population). Being a teacher, I can only partially claim the "poetry reader" designation, and having written a couple dozen poems, only four published, I can only partially claim the "poet" designation, too. My best fit? Everyman behaving a little strangely, maybe.*
But nothing in here especially appealed to the populist in me. To start, Orr dissects what it means to be a poet, and what poetry is, and, scalpel, please, I'm not sure Everyman wants to don the surgeon's mask to witness this, really. Then Orr discusses greatness under the cloak of "ambition" -- what makes poetry great, and what poets ARE great. But wait -- if you're Everyman considering poetry for the first time, what's this to you? Isn't it like insiders' jargon with insiders' names?
Then we get the "Form" chapter which (gasp) gets into the architecture of poetry. Hoo boy. Most people don't care how a car works or what's under the hood, they just want it to start when they turn the ignition key and get them safely from A to B when they press the gas pedal, turn the wheel, and apply the brake. Similarly, most non-poets and non-poetry readers do not want to get into the guts of, say, sonnets, they just want to read it and sigh if it hits them in a sweet spot.
Finally, the most niche-driven chapter of all, "Fishbowl." Here Orr got into the debate of poetry belonging to the outsider/Lone Wolf as opposed to belonging to that new poetic beast, the product of academia endorsed and perpetuated by OTHER products of academia. Poetry workshops. MFAs. Blurbs. You love my book and I'll love yours. Some lesser poet reaches out to you, you quickly tell her to "stay in her lane." Et cetera with enjambment.
I loved the closing of the book, however. In it, Orr recounts his younger days, how he met poetry (it wasn't on-line!), and how he and his dying father shared poetry even though his dad, like most of our dads, wouldn't know the technical details of poetry if he tripped over it. Great stuff, and a great closing, because it speaks to what poetry really is for most readers.
Which is odd, really, because I read so many good books that don't know how to end, either, yet here I read a so-so book of criticism that not only knows it but nails it. So let that be your incentive (or not). If you love poetry, you MAY love this book. Or not. Damned if I know. You're on your own, kind of like white chickens in the rain when they peck by red wheelbarrows....
April 11, 2025
Serious Play
David Orr is a young man with the rare good fortune of combining both a vocation and an avocation. He is a practicing attorney and a graduate of Yale Law School. Orr is also a noted critic of modern poetry who writes regularly for the New York Times and for "Poetry" magazine. Orr's most recent article in the latter publication is titled "Poetry of and About", and it combines his vocation and avocation. The article examines a new anthology of poems loosely related to the law. Most readers without a serious interest in verse will be unfamiliar with "Poetry". But Orr's new and first book, "Rare and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry" develops some of the themes of the article in a way that is intended to appeal to readers with little familiarity with the bewildering world of contemporary poetry.
Orr's book is designed to introduce contemporary poetry to the large majority of readers who have no acquaintance with it. He writes in a free, informal, and inviting style which serves to invite readers who, with substantial reason, will regard modern poetry as a forbidding, arcane art form. Orr also has a gift for a quirky, idiosyncratic turn of phrase. He introduces startling and seemingly unconnected figures of a sudden and out of the blue before turning to show how the introduction pertains to the matter at hand -- much in the way some poets may introduce a difficult metaphor. How does Orr want the reader to approach contemporary poems? Many readers might think that this involves a quasi-spiritual approach or a technical approach with close attention to meter, metaphor, and language. But Orr wants the reader to approach poetry in the manner of -- Belgium. It is a matter of travelling to a foreign country about which one initially knows a little but not much. The traveler may pick up some guides and basic information in advance and then learn and follow his interest as he goes along. So it is with modern poetry which is best approached, for Orr, in a spirit of openness and adventure with the expectation that the journey will prove strange and that one may at times get lost along the way.
Orr tries to give the reader some guideposts to modern poetry. More important, he describes his own love for the art while trying to explain how and why poetry might matter to people or be important. Thus in his several chapters Orr tries to capture some themes and tendencies of contemporary poetry. He explains the current academic-like atmosphere in which poetry is written and struggles to describe the love and the hold of poetry. His chapters combine his own quirky observations and writing with illustrations which usually consist of segments of different poems that show competing tendencies in poetry. In general, Orr is most effective when he discusses specific poems and poets.
The guidelines Orr offers to modern poetry include chapters on "the personal" -- what this may be and how it is reflected in different poems, "the political" -- which examines how poetical speech sometimes is related to political speech, "form" -- a fine chapter which includes much more than a discussion of the difference between metric poetry and free verse, "ambition" -- and most of which consists of an insightful discussion of the differences in poetic style between two modern American masters who were close friends, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, These chapters are originally and easily written. I think they will help many readers as a stepping-off point.
There are a couple of depressingly gossipy chapters in the book about poetry and the modern university (a theme of the magazine article I mentioned at the outset of this review) which are less edifying to read but probably still of value for a newcomer to the world of poetry. Then Orr concludes the book with a personal and candid discussion of the broad question of the book: why read poetry at all. Here again, Orr writes in a peppery way which both acknowledges and deflates certain shibboleths. Orr points to the effort required to get to know poetry and the personal, not entirely explainable character of human choice. Orr writes:
"[I]t's hard to describe what red looks like, or how one's relationship with a child or parent feels. The same is true of poetry. I can't tell you why you should bother to read poems, or to write them; I can only say that if you do choose to give your attention to poetry, as against all the other things you might turn to instead, that choice can be meaningful. There's little grandeur in this, maybe, but out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident." (p. 179)
Orr is an admirer of, among others, Robert Frost and quotes this well-known American writer several times in his book. In his article in "Poetry", Orr deals at some length with Frost's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" with its famous concluding lines:
"My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
for Heaven and the future's sakes."
Frost's poem of earnest playfulness seems to me to capture much of the allure of modern poetry for Orr. His book should help to guide some readers in the direction of poetry.
Robin Friedman
David Orr is a young man with the rare good fortune of combining both a vocation and an avocation. He is a practicing attorney and a graduate of Yale Law School. Orr is also a noted critic of modern poetry who writes regularly for the New York Times and for "Poetry" magazine. Orr's most recent article in the latter publication is titled "Poetry of and About", and it combines his vocation and avocation. The article examines a new anthology of poems loosely related to the law. Most readers without a serious interest in verse will be unfamiliar with "Poetry". But Orr's new and first book, "Rare and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry" develops some of the themes of the article in a way that is intended to appeal to readers with little familiarity with the bewildering world of contemporary poetry.
Orr's book is designed to introduce contemporary poetry to the large majority of readers who have no acquaintance with it. He writes in a free, informal, and inviting style which serves to invite readers who, with substantial reason, will regard modern poetry as a forbidding, arcane art form. Orr also has a gift for a quirky, idiosyncratic turn of phrase. He introduces startling and seemingly unconnected figures of a sudden and out of the blue before turning to show how the introduction pertains to the matter at hand -- much in the way some poets may introduce a difficult metaphor. How does Orr want the reader to approach contemporary poems? Many readers might think that this involves a quasi-spiritual approach or a technical approach with close attention to meter, metaphor, and language. But Orr wants the reader to approach poetry in the manner of -- Belgium. It is a matter of travelling to a foreign country about which one initially knows a little but not much. The traveler may pick up some guides and basic information in advance and then learn and follow his interest as he goes along. So it is with modern poetry which is best approached, for Orr, in a spirit of openness and adventure with the expectation that the journey will prove strange and that one may at times get lost along the way.
Orr tries to give the reader some guideposts to modern poetry. More important, he describes his own love for the art while trying to explain how and why poetry might matter to people or be important. Thus in his several chapters Orr tries to capture some themes and tendencies of contemporary poetry. He explains the current academic-like atmosphere in which poetry is written and struggles to describe the love and the hold of poetry. His chapters combine his own quirky observations and writing with illustrations which usually consist of segments of different poems that show competing tendencies in poetry. In general, Orr is most effective when he discusses specific poems and poets.
The guidelines Orr offers to modern poetry include chapters on "the personal" -- what this may be and how it is reflected in different poems, "the political" -- which examines how poetical speech sometimes is related to political speech, "form" -- a fine chapter which includes much more than a discussion of the difference between metric poetry and free verse, "ambition" -- and most of which consists of an insightful discussion of the differences in poetic style between two modern American masters who were close friends, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, These chapters are originally and easily written. I think they will help many readers as a stepping-off point.
There are a couple of depressingly gossipy chapters in the book about poetry and the modern university (a theme of the magazine article I mentioned at the outset of this review) which are less edifying to read but probably still of value for a newcomer to the world of poetry. Then Orr concludes the book with a personal and candid discussion of the broad question of the book: why read poetry at all. Here again, Orr writes in a peppery way which both acknowledges and deflates certain shibboleths. Orr points to the effort required to get to know poetry and the personal, not entirely explainable character of human choice. Orr writes:
"[I]t's hard to describe what red looks like, or how one's relationship with a child or parent feels. The same is true of poetry. I can't tell you why you should bother to read poems, or to write them; I can only say that if you do choose to give your attention to poetry, as against all the other things you might turn to instead, that choice can be meaningful. There's little grandeur in this, maybe, but out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident." (p. 179)
Orr is an admirer of, among others, Robert Frost and quotes this well-known American writer several times in his book. In his article in "Poetry", Orr deals at some length with Frost's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" with its famous concluding lines:
"My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
for Heaven and the future's sakes."
Frost's poem of earnest playfulness seems to me to capture much of the allure of modern poetry for Orr. His book should help to guide some readers in the direction of poetry.
Robin Friedman
February 12, 2013
I just finished Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr, and now I am sad. It isn't often that I come across a person who cares so much about poetry but is equally as honest about the state of contemporary poetry, and that willingness to illuminate the reality of modern poetry and call it like it is was refreshing, humbling, and entertaining. I'm not sad because of his honesty or the bleak portrait of modern poetry. I'm sad because he was light, funny, and accessible, and now it is over, and now I must go back to actually reading contemporary poetry (ha ha ha).
Y'all know that I love poetry (really, I love poetry, not just like). I come to poetry mostly from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein and the simple pleasure of the way words felt in my mouth as I learned to read. The music of poetry and the written word is unlike lyrics in that the rhythm resides solely in the words-- it cannot be buttressed by notes and chords, by percussion or strings. That's where my love of poetry starts-- in play and in joy. Plus, I am tone deaf, and while I will sing (badly), singing is a distinctly different kind of pleasure that involves high notes, low notes and all that fall between, while one focus of poetry is on the way the words rub up against each other, in stresses and unstressed syllables, in alliterations and rhyme. It sings without vocal range (thank God for that).
Next I find the poems I like most offer a magnified glimpse. At something. Anything, really. Like a photographer, the poet zooms in and says, look what I found. Or, listen to this experience I had once. Or, doesn't this remind you of this other thing? I love the metaphor. I love the hidden truth revealed. I love the "ah ha!" moment when I discover what the writer discovered, and I love to be on the writing end of that "ah ha!" moment, experiencing the surprise, too. I like poems that invite me over for a cup of tea.
But I also like poems with depth and feeling, poems that struggle with questions-- big and little ones--poems that make demands, poems that are so personal they fold in on themselves and become universal. I love poems rich in detail and rooted in scene. I love storytelling and narrative, form and freeverse. I even love the poems that require several run-throughs before the meaning reveals itself, if at all, poems with complex syntax that I have to cut into small pieces and digest slowly before I have any idea what's really going on besides initial awe.
So these are some of the reasons why I love poetry. What is brilliant about Beautiful & Pointless is that Orr does not set out to defend poetry as the Art of Arts. He shares with the reader a panoramic shot of the world of modern poetry, and he nails it, all of it-- the ego, the rubbing of elbows, the academic world, the private world, the public poet, the business of endorsements, the poem about the poem, and, most importantly, the reality that is so often forgotten in poetic circles, the fact that all of the people who actually read and value poetry could comfortably fit into one large athletic complex.
This reality, for me, isn't discouraging. There are plenty of niche groups in the world who are passionate about interests I have no desire to pursue (i.e., Star Trek. Basket Weaving. Hot Air Ballooning. Rowing. Etc.), and none of them are bemoaning the state of the world, the general neglect of their Art, or why collecting stamps hasn't entered the realm of popular culture.
At the end of the century, maybe a dozen dead poets will find their work in the Norton Anthology tortured college freshman will read and be confused by. The likelihood that I am one of those dead poets by 2100 is pretty, pretty slim (the likelihood that I AM a dead poet by 2100 is almost guaranteed, unless I live to be 118), SO, I think I will write whatever the heck I want to write, however the heck I want to write it, and I better darn well have a good time doing it, because chances are me and a handful of my closest friends and family will read the things, and then just two or three will actually care, so if I'm not having fun along the way, then why, why keep it up?
I love poetry.
Read Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr. You might not walk away wanting to jump into the latest issue of Poetry Magazine or jump online to order a subscription for Rattle, but you will have a fresh perspective on the wild and crazy world of the contemporary poet, you will laugh a little-- mostly at yourself, if you are a poet.
Y'all know that I love poetry (really, I love poetry, not just like). I come to poetry mostly from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein and the simple pleasure of the way words felt in my mouth as I learned to read. The music of poetry and the written word is unlike lyrics in that the rhythm resides solely in the words-- it cannot be buttressed by notes and chords, by percussion or strings. That's where my love of poetry starts-- in play and in joy. Plus, I am tone deaf, and while I will sing (badly), singing is a distinctly different kind of pleasure that involves high notes, low notes and all that fall between, while one focus of poetry is on the way the words rub up against each other, in stresses and unstressed syllables, in alliterations and rhyme. It sings without vocal range (thank God for that).
Next I find the poems I like most offer a magnified glimpse. At something. Anything, really. Like a photographer, the poet zooms in and says, look what I found. Or, listen to this experience I had once. Or, doesn't this remind you of this other thing? I love the metaphor. I love the hidden truth revealed. I love the "ah ha!" moment when I discover what the writer discovered, and I love to be on the writing end of that "ah ha!" moment, experiencing the surprise, too. I like poems that invite me over for a cup of tea.
But I also like poems with depth and feeling, poems that struggle with questions-- big and little ones--poems that make demands, poems that are so personal they fold in on themselves and become universal. I love poems rich in detail and rooted in scene. I love storytelling and narrative, form and freeverse. I even love the poems that require several run-throughs before the meaning reveals itself, if at all, poems with complex syntax that I have to cut into small pieces and digest slowly before I have any idea what's really going on besides initial awe.
So these are some of the reasons why I love poetry. What is brilliant about Beautiful & Pointless is that Orr does not set out to defend poetry as the Art of Arts. He shares with the reader a panoramic shot of the world of modern poetry, and he nails it, all of it-- the ego, the rubbing of elbows, the academic world, the private world, the public poet, the business of endorsements, the poem about the poem, and, most importantly, the reality that is so often forgotten in poetic circles, the fact that all of the people who actually read and value poetry could comfortably fit into one large athletic complex.
This reality, for me, isn't discouraging. There are plenty of niche groups in the world who are passionate about interests I have no desire to pursue (i.e., Star Trek. Basket Weaving. Hot Air Ballooning. Rowing. Etc.), and none of them are bemoaning the state of the world, the general neglect of their Art, or why collecting stamps hasn't entered the realm of popular culture.
At the end of the century, maybe a dozen dead poets will find their work in the Norton Anthology tortured college freshman will read and be confused by. The likelihood that I am one of those dead poets by 2100 is pretty, pretty slim (the likelihood that I AM a dead poet by 2100 is almost guaranteed, unless I live to be 118), SO, I think I will write whatever the heck I want to write, however the heck I want to write it, and I better darn well have a good time doing it, because chances are me and a handful of my closest friends and family will read the things, and then just two or three will actually care, so if I'm not having fun along the way, then why, why keep it up?
I love poetry.
Read Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr. You might not walk away wanting to jump into the latest issue of Poetry Magazine or jump online to order a subscription for Rattle, but you will have a fresh perspective on the wild and crazy world of the contemporary poet, you will laugh a little-- mostly at yourself, if you are a poet.
September 1, 2011
Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr is not just another book about poetry. I have read many books about poetry. About how to read it, about what it is, about different forms and styles, and about how to write it. Many of these books were excellent, some were exhilarating. But they all left me overwhelmed and as unable to talk about poetry as before (or close to).
Orr talks about these books up front and offers a different perspective: a chance to listen to a poet and poetry critic share his personal experience as a reader of poetry, a way to begin to develop a language in which to have conversations about poetry.
And so begin this unpretentious, highly accessible book. Orr compares the beginning of a relationship with poetry (which he describes as the one activity people have a relationship with that goes beyond the "doing") as visiting a foreign country. He says all that is needed is "patience and the willingness" to book a ticket. And, he adds a little later, the willingness to tolerate being confused and "not knowing," in the way we probably would if we knew ourselves surrounded by an unfamiliar language and culture.
The book is funny, provocative, friendly, and always interesting. In relatively few pages, Orr gives a brief summary of poetry's relationship with itself, its practitioners and society. He shares some very funny (and human) stories of poets' maliciousness/envy/fear and movingly conveys (as he sees it) their often lonely, self-doubting lives. And as promised, he shares his experience both personal and professional with his relationship with poetry.
Orr describes poetry as a "small, vulnerable activity," but also points out that human life consists of many "small, unnecessary acts of devotions." I found myself taking many notes, partly for the pleasure of repeating his succinct, lovely phrases and partly to argue with him.
Because at the risk of repeating the hyperbole he accuses lovers of poetry of indulging in, I would say that poetry fills a particular need, opens up worlds inside us and in our relationship with the world around us in a way unique to it. And I would say music, painting, theater, sculpture, all do the same, each in their own way. And a world deprived of these special relationships is a world that is flatter. And each art may not speak to each person in equally powerful ways but I would argue that developing an understanding of any (and all) of the arts increases our humanity and benefits us and the world.
Orr talks about these books up front and offers a different perspective: a chance to listen to a poet and poetry critic share his personal experience as a reader of poetry, a way to begin to develop a language in which to have conversations about poetry.
And so begin this unpretentious, highly accessible book. Orr compares the beginning of a relationship with poetry (which he describes as the one activity people have a relationship with that goes beyond the "doing") as visiting a foreign country. He says all that is needed is "patience and the willingness" to book a ticket. And, he adds a little later, the willingness to tolerate being confused and "not knowing," in the way we probably would if we knew ourselves surrounded by an unfamiliar language and culture.
The book is funny, provocative, friendly, and always interesting. In relatively few pages, Orr gives a brief summary of poetry's relationship with itself, its practitioners and society. He shares some very funny (and human) stories of poets' maliciousness/envy/fear and movingly conveys (as he sees it) their often lonely, self-doubting lives. And as promised, he shares his experience both personal and professional with his relationship with poetry.
Orr describes poetry as a "small, vulnerable activity," but also points out that human life consists of many "small, unnecessary acts of devotions." I found myself taking many notes, partly for the pleasure of repeating his succinct, lovely phrases and partly to argue with him.
Because at the risk of repeating the hyperbole he accuses lovers of poetry of indulging in, I would say that poetry fills a particular need, opens up worlds inside us and in our relationship with the world around us in a way unique to it. And I would say music, painting, theater, sculpture, all do the same, each in their own way. And a world deprived of these special relationships is a world that is flatter. And each art may not speak to each person in equally powerful ways but I would argue that developing an understanding of any (and all) of the arts increases our humanity and benefits us and the world.
April 2, 2011
You want to see modern day poets called out for their bad poetry? Pick up this book. The first one to get a lashing in Jewel. David Orr complains that while the book did very well in sales, the poetry is such drivel that it's embarrassing. And it just gets worse from there.
I like poetry. Granted I am picky in what I like, but I don't think I would go as far as saying what I don't like is worthless. In this book we are given a short study on how to distinguish good poetry from bad poetry. How to distinguish poetry with feeling versus poetry for the sake of writing words down.
The book was fun to read, partly because it just ripped some modern day poets to shreds but also because I liked his "explanations" of it. The reason I put that in quotes is because at times he just quickly says it's garbage and moves on. I think the book would have been more effective in telling it from his perspective and telling us the why. He is a knowledgable man in poetry and sometimes the book read a bit elitist. "Don't you know why this is crap? Why should I even bother explaining it to you?"
Even through some on of his descriptions you can start understanding more about what modern day poets try to accomplish. If you are a poet or heavily read poetry, this is an interesting book to pick up. You may not agree with most of what he says, but it will give you an inside view as to what critics look for in poetry nowadays and how to avoid the pitfalls they all dread.
I must say the younger version of me was a bit let down. Poetry shouldn't be so difficult. It should be what calls out to YOU, not a critic. Something that is personal to you, may not be to someone else, and to have that person tell you your poetry is bad, kind of hurts. To his credit, Orr covers this in his book. He writes about how shocked people are when they hear that he rips apart people's written emotions. But like he says, we review all other types of written words, why not poetry?
The book was a quick, funny illuminating read. Would I take everything he said to heart. No. But I'll be sure to write about it in my next poem.
I like poetry. Granted I am picky in what I like, but I don't think I would go as far as saying what I don't like is worthless. In this book we are given a short study on how to distinguish good poetry from bad poetry. How to distinguish poetry with feeling versus poetry for the sake of writing words down.
The book was fun to read, partly because it just ripped some modern day poets to shreds but also because I liked his "explanations" of it. The reason I put that in quotes is because at times he just quickly says it's garbage and moves on. I think the book would have been more effective in telling it from his perspective and telling us the why. He is a knowledgable man in poetry and sometimes the book read a bit elitist. "Don't you know why this is crap? Why should I even bother explaining it to you?"
Even through some on of his descriptions you can start understanding more about what modern day poets try to accomplish. If you are a poet or heavily read poetry, this is an interesting book to pick up. You may not agree with most of what he says, but it will give you an inside view as to what critics look for in poetry nowadays and how to avoid the pitfalls they all dread.
I must say the younger version of me was a bit let down. Poetry shouldn't be so difficult. It should be what calls out to YOU, not a critic. Something that is personal to you, may not be to someone else, and to have that person tell you your poetry is bad, kind of hurts. To his credit, Orr covers this in his book. He writes about how shocked people are when they hear that he rips apart people's written emotions. But like he says, we review all other types of written words, why not poetry?
The book was a quick, funny illuminating read. Would I take everything he said to heart. No. But I'll be sure to write about it in my next poem.
December 31, 2015
David Orr, the poetry critic for the NY Times, tells of meeting a woman at a party and when she asked the question we all ask of new people these days, "What do you do?" he said, "I'm a poetry critic."
"Oh! How can you do that? Poetry is so . . . so PERSONAL."
And so Orr begins his slim book by addressing the question of just how personal modern confessional poetry really is. Writing about one's misery and disappointment and personal failings can start to sound the same when everyone is doing it, and not very cleverly at that. But one of the most personal poems he knows, says Orr, is John O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died," and especially the last few lines:
"... I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
"and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing"
It made me stop breathing for a moment.
Orr quotes from dozens of modern poets and has an entertaining chapter about the formalists, one of whom includes in his book of sonnets a 14-line poem with one word per line. Is it a sonnet? I think it is and I loved it as I did all of these essays.
"Oh! How can you do that? Poetry is so . . . so PERSONAL."
And so Orr begins his slim book by addressing the question of just how personal modern confessional poetry really is. Writing about one's misery and disappointment and personal failings can start to sound the same when everyone is doing it, and not very cleverly at that. But one of the most personal poems he knows, says Orr, is John O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died," and especially the last few lines:
"... I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
"and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing"
It made me stop breathing for a moment.
Orr quotes from dozens of modern poets and has an entertaining chapter about the formalists, one of whom includes in his book of sonnets a 14-line poem with one word per line. Is it a sonnet? I think it is and I loved it as I did all of these essays.
April 5, 2023
First the good news: parts of this book are hilarious, worthy of Stephen Fry. I was laughing so loudly my husband left for a quieter room to read. My 3-star rating is an average between the sections I enjoyed and the long discussions I found tedious and repetitive. However, I’d recommend buying or checking it out just to read the Introduction. Orr says new readers of poetry should approach a poem like you would approach Brazil, then proceeds to convince me he is correct. He explains that when you travel to a place with a different culture and language, you’re going to be confused at times, but you’ll “accept the confusion as part of the experience.”
My second favorite section was the chapter titled “Forms,” where Orr offers an outline of the history of poetic forms. “Prior to 1910” is lumped together. In the 60s and 70s, “poets jettisoned regular forms in favor of long, loopy Whitmanian lines; chatty, surrealistic lines…; and short, gnomic lines about snow, bones, and mystical whatnots. It was the Age of Aquarius!”
I was also amused in the chapter “The Political,” when he says what I’ve often told people myself, that most poets “lean left.” He goes on to say, “There are maybe five conservative American poets, not one of whom can safely show his face at a writing conference for fear of being angrily doused with herbal tea.”
If you enjoy long discussions about why and what for, you may enjoy the entire book more than I did. It just wasn’t my cup of herbal tea.
My second favorite section was the chapter titled “Forms,” where Orr offers an outline of the history of poetic forms. “Prior to 1910” is lumped together. In the 60s and 70s, “poets jettisoned regular forms in favor of long, loopy Whitmanian lines; chatty, surrealistic lines…; and short, gnomic lines about snow, bones, and mystical whatnots. It was the Age of Aquarius!”
I was also amused in the chapter “The Political,” when he says what I’ve often told people myself, that most poets “lean left.” He goes on to say, “There are maybe five conservative American poets, not one of whom can safely show his face at a writing conference for fear of being angrily doused with herbal tea.”
If you enjoy long discussions about why and what for, you may enjoy the entire book more than I did. It just wasn’t my cup of herbal tea.
June 22, 2011
"So please: Disagree with me." If Mr. Orr had not written that plea in his Introduction to this book, I might not have commented here.
But before I disagree, I will agree: Mr. Orr, I agree with you that poetry lovers "Probably ... just like the way it sounds" (page 11) and that the affection your father had for the sound and silliness of "The Owl and the Pussycat" is a good thing, both beautiful and far from pointless. I also agree that poetry is a "small, vulnerable human activity" (page 192). Years ago, I fell in love with poetry that was small and vulnerable.
Now, I will disagree with one approach of your book: its mischaracterization of the average American poet in the year 2011. The source of that mischaracterization is the book's neglect of the vibrant, young, diverse, inventive, exciting, and globalized poetry culture of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Only once in your book's 194 pages of text is email mentioned. Only once is Google, a website (Foetry.com), or a blog (The Dread Schenectady) mentioned.
Despite my one major disagreement, I agree with enough of the observations, wisdom, and good-naturedness in this book that I will recommend it to my poetry friends. Most likely, I will recommend it to my online poetry friends via the Internet, Facebook, and email. And Goodreads.
But before I disagree, I will agree: Mr. Orr, I agree with you that poetry lovers "Probably ... just like the way it sounds" (page 11) and that the affection your father had for the sound and silliness of "The Owl and the Pussycat" is a good thing, both beautiful and far from pointless. I also agree that poetry is a "small, vulnerable human activity" (page 192). Years ago, I fell in love with poetry that was small and vulnerable.
Now, I will disagree with one approach of your book: its mischaracterization of the average American poet in the year 2011. The source of that mischaracterization is the book's neglect of the vibrant, young, diverse, inventive, exciting, and globalized poetry culture of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Only once in your book's 194 pages of text is email mentioned. Only once is Google, a website (Foetry.com), or a blog (The Dread Schenectady) mentioned.
Despite my one major disagreement, I agree with enough of the observations, wisdom, and good-naturedness in this book that I will recommend it to my poetry friends. Most likely, I will recommend it to my online poetry friends via the Internet, Facebook, and email. And Goodreads.
August 19, 2013
After I made it through the first two chapters, which seem strangely condescending, puzzling through basic philosophical questions about the value of poetry for non-poets without adding much new insight beyond the author's educated frame of references, the book gets better. For instance, I like David Orr's brief, tongue-in-cheek, yet accurate summary of recent poetics:
"Still, though, we weren't quite tired of fighting about traditional forms. So a group of writers calling themselves 'New Formalists' began insisting that poets should really start writing sonnets again, neatly stepping around the fact that many poets had, in fact, been writing sonnets for decades. At more or less the same time, a bunch of writers called the Language Poet were insisting that sonnets were passe, neatly stepping around the fact that many poets, had, in fact, been avoiding writing sonnets for decades. Naturally, these two groups were much discussed, even though, as the scholar David Bromwich diplomatically put it with reference to the Language Poets, "they do not, as yet, appear to write good poems."
I also love this quote: "Our avant-gardists have yet to topple capitalism by undermining narrative, but they've gotten some coveted jobs and made their way onto syllabi."
I think I'm going to like the rest of this book.
"Still, though, we weren't quite tired of fighting about traditional forms. So a group of writers calling themselves 'New Formalists' began insisting that poets should really start writing sonnets again, neatly stepping around the fact that many poets had, in fact, been writing sonnets for decades. At more or less the same time, a bunch of writers called the Language Poet were insisting that sonnets were passe, neatly stepping around the fact that many poets, had, in fact, been avoiding writing sonnets for decades. Naturally, these two groups were much discussed, even though, as the scholar David Bromwich diplomatically put it with reference to the Language Poets, "they do not, as yet, appear to write good poems."
I also love this quote: "Our avant-gardists have yet to topple capitalism by undermining narrative, but they've gotten some coveted jobs and made their way onto syllabi."
I think I'm going to like the rest of this book.
February 4, 2016
Orr is the poetry critic for the New York Times. This meandering, stream-of-consciousness contemplation can be charming or witty in spots, but I don't think it has facilitated or enhanced my enjoyment of modern poetry much. Who is it aimed at, I wonder?
September 6, 2023
4/5
A book more about our relationship with poetry than poetry itself. I was not disappointed. Since I found this in the $1 cart at Grey Matter Books and my suite is full of poets, I had to give this one a go.
There was some analysis, like this part on how to create a feeling of "the personal" and vulnerability: "some experiences—grief, for example—actually don't sit very easily alongside our day-to-day activities, so that when they're brought up abruptly in a poem filled with ephemera, we're forced to decide whether the sudden emergence of its other, more personal identity can be accommodated" in other words, a "curious juxtaposition" that doesn't necessarily arise from "personal" content. I think I will find these parts useful in English 120.
My favorite chapter was the one on poetry and politics. The book is very meta and acknowledges how poetry is neither read nor understood by the majority of people today. So, what role can it play in politics? Politicians describe high moments as poetic but also call it "empty talk" ...poets often are deeply invested in political life but seldom write about the "sloppy, compromised, and frequently idiotic business of democracy—which is, for all its flaws, the way most political change occurs in this country." I am paraphrasing Orr here. He says the link is a type of "totalizing vision" - people who "imagine new ways of being and perceiving," "leaders of thought," "measure the circumference an sound the depths of human nature." It seems like less of a stretch when you read the book, I promise. Also some interesting stuff on poetry bearing witness to vs. promoting change.
Other interesting stuff: form, poetry's place in academia, poet drama. Lots of good quotes.
"The experience of reading poetry...is a complex blend of memory and sensation, anticipation and argument."
"A sculptor works with substances his audience may never have touched; a musician plays an instrument that his listeners have never mastered. But a poet uses the same words that hundreds of millions of people use every day to marry, fight, console themselves, entertain, grieve, and order cheeseburgers"
At times, this book is very very rambly and only slightly interesting. But, I did learn a lot and gain some appreciation for this strange little art form. Beautifully pointless, or pointlessly beautiful, yeah!
A book more about our relationship with poetry than poetry itself. I was not disappointed. Since I found this in the $1 cart at Grey Matter Books and my suite is full of poets, I had to give this one a go.
There was some analysis, like this part on how to create a feeling of "the personal" and vulnerability: "some experiences—grief, for example—actually don't sit very easily alongside our day-to-day activities, so that when they're brought up abruptly in a poem filled with ephemera, we're forced to decide whether the sudden emergence of its other, more personal identity can be accommodated" in other words, a "curious juxtaposition" that doesn't necessarily arise from "personal" content. I think I will find these parts useful in English 120.
My favorite chapter was the one on poetry and politics. The book is very meta and acknowledges how poetry is neither read nor understood by the majority of people today. So, what role can it play in politics? Politicians describe high moments as poetic but also call it "empty talk" ...poets often are deeply invested in political life but seldom write about the "sloppy, compromised, and frequently idiotic business of democracy—which is, for all its flaws, the way most political change occurs in this country." I am paraphrasing Orr here. He says the link is a type of "totalizing vision" - people who "imagine new ways of being and perceiving," "leaders of thought," "measure the circumference an sound the depths of human nature." It seems like less of a stretch when you read the book, I promise. Also some interesting stuff on poetry bearing witness to vs. promoting change.
Other interesting stuff: form, poetry's place in academia, poet drama. Lots of good quotes.
"The experience of reading poetry...is a complex blend of memory and sensation, anticipation and argument."
"A sculptor works with substances his audience may never have touched; a musician plays an instrument that his listeners have never mastered. But a poet uses the same words that hundreds of millions of people use every day to marry, fight, console themselves, entertain, grieve, and order cheeseburgers"
At times, this book is very very rambly and only slightly interesting. But, I did learn a lot and gain some appreciation for this strange little art form. Beautifully pointless, or pointlessly beautiful, yeah!
August 19, 2017
The closing sentence of the Introduction says it best: "The point is to allow you to find your own place in the poetry world, where others can come and visit." My relationship with the poetry world has been until now been unexamined and ill-defined: I have read poems required in school and various other poems, I have composed doggerel and haiku for friends, I have friends who love poetry and friends who hate poetry -- but I never fit those pieces together in frameworks that made sense for me. Now, thanks to Orr, I feel comfortable with a few frameworks that work for me and trying on other frameworks. A few parts of Orr's book are belabored, a few of his arguments seem wrong in my opinion, and he ignores a few poets I like; but having worked through the discussion with him has been helpful. The journey has also been easy and fun, because he moves easily and productively across a broad range of scholarly analysis and everyday, often funny, examples.
Read
January 15, 2022Learned various things about how English poetry is sitting at the moment. The last chapter, "Why Bother?" is particularly memorable, and not just because it's the one I just read. The concept of 'unnecessary devotions' is going to stay with me for a while. Poetry is a weird obsession, but one that I am choosing over the other brands on offer.
You won't learn much about how to read poetry, but you will learn a bit about how other people are reading it or not reading it, as the case may be.
You won't learn much about how to read poetry, but you will learn a bit about how other people are reading it or not reading it, as the case may be.
January 28, 2019
A book with an apropos title: I'm not sure how much I'd say I learned from these essays (they tend to avoid statements that could be called sweeping), but they are lovely, and I admire their thoughtful nature and candid humor.
March 15, 2025
Just pointless. To be fair, I’m not a fan of modern poetry. But I went in willing to have my mind changed. It wasn’t.
September 3, 2019
David Orr’s book is an accessible and joyful look at what’s behind the curtain of modern poetry. The humorous tone and generous analysis lend themselves to any reader at whatever level of poetry-fandom.
The book lays out a number of phenomena such as “the personal,” “the political,” “the fishbowl,” and others. Orr’s positions the poetry community as a foreign landscape full of simultaneous confusion and delight, and the book flies gracefully on this consistent and thought-through metaphor.
I hoped the book would provide more tools; there aren’t too many concrete takeaways or strategies that would help a reader enter into modern poetry with more confidence. The book is primarily focused on the context of writing and reading poetry and “setting-the-scene” for someone who understands nothing about poetry. However, Orr doesn’t give that reader any “maps” or “tricks of reading,” so the book gives more a sense of “Poetry is crazy! How delightful!” rather than “Here’s how to read modern poetry with more confidence.” The book succeeds without providing too many tools, but it would have been an extra, concrete bonus to an already charming book.
The book lays out a number of phenomena such as “the personal,” “the political,” “the fishbowl,” and others. Orr’s positions the poetry community as a foreign landscape full of simultaneous confusion and delight, and the book flies gracefully on this consistent and thought-through metaphor.
I hoped the book would provide more tools; there aren’t too many concrete takeaways or strategies that would help a reader enter into modern poetry with more confidence. The book is primarily focused on the context of writing and reading poetry and “setting-the-scene” for someone who understands nothing about poetry. However, Orr doesn’t give that reader any “maps” or “tricks of reading,” so the book gives more a sense of “Poetry is crazy! How delightful!” rather than “Here’s how to read modern poetry with more confidence.” The book succeeds without providing too many tools, but it would have been an extra, concrete bonus to an already charming book.
October 29, 2012
If "Beautiful & Pointless" really was intended to provide "a riveting tour of poetry as it actually exists today" for an audience of non-poetry readers, I would be giving this book one star for further driving away that other "98% of the population" that doesn't read poetry. I'm rating it more highly as a mirror that the SUBSET of poets Orr writes about here--many (but not all) of the academics and their progeny--can hold up to their own faces to help them figure out why almost nobody bothers to read what they write. What Orr tells us is true, but only as far as it goes. A huge amount of poetry is being published now outside of the universities, and I'm not talking about just the newest wave of self-publishing print-on-demand poets. I've been active in the small press movement since the early seventies, and a considerable amount of fresh, vibrant work is being published by independent publishers.
Orr gives the impression that academics are the only ones writing poetry today. This is just not the case. Some of the best poetry being written now is by poets who manage to rise above or work outside of academia. As a non-academic, I can see along with the rest of the 98% that it's pretty pointless to read poetry written by poets who have their heads up their own you-know-whats all the time (as a number of poets Orr chooses to highlight clearly do)--because WHO CARES what they see in there? I maintain that even their fellow academicians don't care. The Plato's cave-like glimpses of modern poetry presented in this book left me shaking my head, saying "No wonder nobody buys poetry books anymore." If we are to judge the state of modern poetry strictly by what's being churned out of MFA programs, a considerable amount of engaging work written by quite talented poets will be swept under the rug of history. This is not to say that good work is not being done within the crucible of the university, but too much of it is stilted, tired, self-absorbed--completely out of touch with the rest of the world.
Here's my two cents: To be worth reading, a poem must transcend the poet who writes it, must have depth and a life of its own; and it must somehow transmit that life, that connection, to the reader. What the non-poetry reading audience needs to know is not how much poetry today is written out of pettiness, myopia, or solipsism—which renders it not only pointless but deadly boring—but that poetry can shake them and wake them and take them places they've never been before. In this regard, Orr's metaphor early on in the book of traveling to a strange country is a good one. But the strange country he takes us to in the better part of the book is more like Rome with its overabundance of cats digging through dumpsters full of stinking old wine bottles than it is the Belgian countryside. Sure, there are Berninis to be glimpsed around the next corner—watch out for the slop bucket tossed out of that upper-story window!—but Orr does not show the non-poetry reader any Berninis.
I took four college-level creative writing classes about forty years ago, learning metrics, sound and sense. I fell in love with poetry (Dickey being the first to blow me away); wrote a few good poems; won a few nice literary prizes; started a small poetry press or two; and fell in love with and married a poet whose poetry blew me away. The poems I love are well-crafted, yes, but they are not Empsonian exercises in multi-dimensional navel-gazing. They have a whiff about them of timelessness and universality that anyone—anyone who reads deeply—can "get." The poetry I want to read snatches me up—on many levels—and refuses to let go. Sometimes a poem is so good that I have to memorize it before I can put the book down and do something else. Of course, ugliness can be beautiful and a poem about pointlessness can make a point, but many of the poems Orr chooses to present to us largely fail on both counts.
As is true of any reader, I am biased and prone to my own pettiness that arises from my own experience: After all these years, DH and I still run a small literary press and have published some exceptional poets and volumes of poetry. Only a few of these forty years have been spent in academia, and some of the best poets we have published are not academics. But if "Beautiful & Pointless" is to be believed, we and the poets we publish don't even exist. That the only poets getting any attention from reviewers are those doing the academic bump and grind is, sadly, why poetry is not appreciated by a larger audience.
David Orr needs to get out more!
Orr gives the impression that academics are the only ones writing poetry today. This is just not the case. Some of the best poetry being written now is by poets who manage to rise above or work outside of academia. As a non-academic, I can see along with the rest of the 98% that it's pretty pointless to read poetry written by poets who have their heads up their own you-know-whats all the time (as a number of poets Orr chooses to highlight clearly do)--because WHO CARES what they see in there? I maintain that even their fellow academicians don't care. The Plato's cave-like glimpses of modern poetry presented in this book left me shaking my head, saying "No wonder nobody buys poetry books anymore." If we are to judge the state of modern poetry strictly by what's being churned out of MFA programs, a considerable amount of engaging work written by quite talented poets will be swept under the rug of history. This is not to say that good work is not being done within the crucible of the university, but too much of it is stilted, tired, self-absorbed--completely out of touch with the rest of the world.
Here's my two cents: To be worth reading, a poem must transcend the poet who writes it, must have depth and a life of its own; and it must somehow transmit that life, that connection, to the reader. What the non-poetry reading audience needs to know is not how much poetry today is written out of pettiness, myopia, or solipsism—which renders it not only pointless but deadly boring—but that poetry can shake them and wake them and take them places they've never been before. In this regard, Orr's metaphor early on in the book of traveling to a strange country is a good one. But the strange country he takes us to in the better part of the book is more like Rome with its overabundance of cats digging through dumpsters full of stinking old wine bottles than it is the Belgian countryside. Sure, there are Berninis to be glimpsed around the next corner—watch out for the slop bucket tossed out of that upper-story window!—but Orr does not show the non-poetry reader any Berninis.
I took four college-level creative writing classes about forty years ago, learning metrics, sound and sense. I fell in love with poetry (Dickey being the first to blow me away); wrote a few good poems; won a few nice literary prizes; started a small poetry press or two; and fell in love with and married a poet whose poetry blew me away. The poems I love are well-crafted, yes, but they are not Empsonian exercises in multi-dimensional navel-gazing. They have a whiff about them of timelessness and universality that anyone—anyone who reads deeply—can "get." The poetry I want to read snatches me up—on many levels—and refuses to let go. Sometimes a poem is so good that I have to memorize it before I can put the book down and do something else. Of course, ugliness can be beautiful and a poem about pointlessness can make a point, but many of the poems Orr chooses to present to us largely fail on both counts.
As is true of any reader, I am biased and prone to my own pettiness that arises from my own experience: After all these years, DH and I still run a small literary press and have published some exceptional poets and volumes of poetry. Only a few of these forty years have been spent in academia, and some of the best poets we have published are not academics. But if "Beautiful & Pointless" is to be believed, we and the poets we publish don't even exist. That the only poets getting any attention from reviewers are those doing the academic bump and grind is, sadly, why poetry is not appreciated by a larger audience.
David Orr needs to get out more!
April 16, 2011
David Orr is a smart writer and poet who has taken on the task to add yet another apology regarding poetry and its under the radar status with most readers, yet another attempt to make the craft less off-putting to a larger audience. It is an enjoyable book , but the joining of poet and readership is not something that can be accomplished by easy suggestions ; as usual, I adhere to the pragmatist dictum that the value of any theory is in how it works, which means, to paraphrase, the allure of any poem, in any style, of any theory, of any agenda composed in English, resides mostly with the talent of the individual poet. We get into matters about how well the poet has absorbed and assimilated their readings, ie, "made them his/her own", how broadly they've outgrown their influences and progressed toward their own version of originality and genius, of course. At the end of the day and long into the night and the following morning, what draws a reader to a poet again after a first reading was the quality of the stanzas, the line breaks, the stylization of the verbs and the spare placement of the adjectives, the use of imagery that seemed both unique and yet plausible, the use of metaphor that is delivered smoothly, invisibly, musically. It is, I think, less a matter on whether a poet opts for simpler diction and terse couplets in regimented rhyme schemes, or a shambling flow that winds through so many associative canyon highways before coming to something resembling a poetic effect; poets are not unlike jazz improvisers of the language, which is to say that how ever they choose to address a problem they've assigned themselves, it comes down to if the writer has developed as style that has an elegance that adheres to and extends the dictates of their chosen form, if the poems in question have their activity placed in the world the poet is nominally apart of, and if this is accomplished with the least amount of pretentious self-awareness. This is to say that what makes a poem an attractive item to return to again and to ruminate about depends on the skill the poet can forget the prevailing nonsense that "poems are always read in the context of other poems" and get on with their task of fathoming more interesting mysteries, oddities, paradoxes and alluvial epiphanies the experience of being alive, breathing and seeing brings us. There is nothing wrong with living in your head, per se, but even poets need to stop watching the dust gather on the furniture and go for a walk, a drive, a movie, a date.
June 9, 2011
Beautiful & Pointless opens with the amusing (if not especially interesting) observation that "For decades now, one of the poetry world's favorite activities has been bemoaning its lost audience, then bemoaning the bemoaning, then bemoaning that bemoaning, until finally everyone shrugs and applies for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts." Instead, Orr commits himself to 200 pages of stalwart, determinedly phlegmatic un-moaning, steady-breathing his way to the common sense conclusion that "Poetry is a small, vulnerable human activity no better or more powerful than thousands of other small, vulnerable human activities." Well, sure, I suppose so.
His last chapter is titled why bother? and indeed I wondered why he did.
Orr's book isn't by any stretch "a guide to poetry." I have a small shelf of these, ranging from intelligent, friendly introductions by Alfred Corn, Mary Oliver, Mark Strand, to more serious tomes by James Fenton, and the Guide of all Guides by Mary Kinzie. Orr more or less ignores all learning, preferring to chat instead about the sociopolitical foibles of poets trying to impress the 10 other poets who might have heard of them. Late in the book he refers to "the purplish language" of Edward Hirsch's How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry with a light touch of mockery – which made me shrug in turn; I remember reading Hirsch's book when it appeared a dozen years back and thoroughly enjoying his passion for poets and poems, some of whom were new to me and have stayed with me since. He did not mention Camille Paglia's Break, Blow, Burn – I'm surprised, it seems tailor-made for his alleged iconoclastic wit – but (again) I found much to celebrate in Paglia's book too, an eclectic assortment of poems passionately championed for whatever radioactive half-life of an idea she had at the time.
Orr misses the point that people love poems, not Poetry.
His last chapter is titled why bother? and indeed I wondered why he did.
Orr's book isn't by any stretch "a guide to poetry." I have a small shelf of these, ranging from intelligent, friendly introductions by Alfred Corn, Mary Oliver, Mark Strand, to more serious tomes by James Fenton, and the Guide of all Guides by Mary Kinzie. Orr more or less ignores all learning, preferring to chat instead about the sociopolitical foibles of poets trying to impress the 10 other poets who might have heard of them. Late in the book he refers to "the purplish language" of Edward Hirsch's How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry with a light touch of mockery – which made me shrug in turn; I remember reading Hirsch's book when it appeared a dozen years back and thoroughly enjoying his passion for poets and poems, some of whom were new to me and have stayed with me since. He did not mention Camille Paglia's Break, Blow, Burn – I'm surprised, it seems tailor-made for his alleged iconoclastic wit – but (again) I found much to celebrate in Paglia's book too, an eclectic assortment of poems passionately championed for whatever radioactive half-life of an idea she had at the time.
Orr misses the point that people love poems, not Poetry.
February 13, 2025
This was incredibly disappointing. Just another example of a writer who can churn out entertaining, insightful, and pithy articles of poetic criticism, but who can't write a book to save his life. It was a total mess. The whole time, he's claiming to write about how he wants to make the world of poetry a bit clearer to a non-poet, but he ends up doing nothing but obfuscating his own argument with incoherent paragraphs. I am by no means a poetry expert, but I am also certainly not a novice, and bearing in mind the stated goals of this book, I'd have to say that Orr failed miserably. This book did not make me appreciate poetry. In fact, it made me hate him and his stupid attempt at humor. I was going to give this book 2 stars, but I am so riled up about this, I must bring it down to 1 star, something i find unthinkable.
The two good takeaways i gleaned from this mess of a book was that he feels like people are more impassioned about poetry than about many other hobbies and occupations. Well, even though he wrote it in an overly complicated way, I have to agree. Unfortunately for Orr, he's on the receiving end of my hate.
The second takeaway was that I was so impassioned while reading this Frankenstein's monster of ideas, that I decided to pay for a 1-year subscription to Poetry magazine and develop my poetic education on my own terms. haha
The two good takeaways i gleaned from this mess of a book was that he feels like people are more impassioned about poetry than about many other hobbies and occupations. Well, even though he wrote it in an overly complicated way, I have to agree. Unfortunately for Orr, he's on the receiving end of my hate.
The second takeaway was that I was so impassioned while reading this Frankenstein's monster of ideas, that I decided to pay for a 1-year subscription to Poetry magazine and develop my poetic education on my own terms. haha
June 22, 2012
Another book I read about somewhere, seemed interesting, so when I saw it in the library it caught my eye. Plenty of food for thought, though as the title suggests, I'm still not sure that I get the point that Orr is attempting to make.
The author talks about how hard it is to define just what a poem is; he gives some general guidelines but leaves things pretty open-ended. He gives examples to prove how slippery poets and poetry are. He describes the arguments and controversies, often obsure and seemingly meaningless, that ebb and flow in the somewhat insular poetic world.
Orr wants to know: Why do people read poetry? Why DON'T they? Why should they?
A person needs to have a relationsip with an activity or art form for it to be meaningful. And Orr feels that those with relationships to poetry seem particularly intensely involved. How is this relationship made? In the end there seems to be no map or set of rules to follow.
Perhaps listening to rap or enjoying the nonsense of Edward Lear is as close as most will get. But maybe given the right chance encounter at the right time a single poem or poet can lead the way to a deeper and wider love.
Which is definitely, to my mind, another vote for including poetry and all the arts in the education of every child.
The author talks about how hard it is to define just what a poem is; he gives some general guidelines but leaves things pretty open-ended. He gives examples to prove how slippery poets and poetry are. He describes the arguments and controversies, often obsure and seemingly meaningless, that ebb and flow in the somewhat insular poetic world.
Orr wants to know: Why do people read poetry? Why DON'T they? Why should they?
A person needs to have a relationsip with an activity or art form for it to be meaningful. And Orr feels that those with relationships to poetry seem particularly intensely involved. How is this relationship made? In the end there seems to be no map or set of rules to follow.
Perhaps listening to rap or enjoying the nonsense of Edward Lear is as close as most will get. But maybe given the right chance encounter at the right time a single poem or poet can lead the way to a deeper and wider love.
Which is definitely, to my mind, another vote for including poetry and all the arts in the education of every child.
August 13, 2016
What the personal means in modern poetry: when what seems to be a "private" identity enters the poem, and we must keep the poet-as-author "sustained in harmony" with the new identity - reconciling the friction between two versions of the poet's identity. The political: poetry's totalizing vision to which everything, even the poet himself/herself, becomes subordinate. Form: contemporary poets who write in traditional form (e.g., Marilyn Hacker); poets who don't (C. D. Wright); poets who write in forms that "aren't really traditional but seem like they should be" (Kay Ryan); poets who write in traditional form "in jokey and/or disturbing ways" (Ashbery, Seidel); and poets who write "in traditional form sometimes and in various versions of free verse other times . . . " Ambition: why do critics feel it necessary to apologize for the "smallness" of Kay Ryan's poems while explaining that they are nonetheless worthwhile -- even "big" in non-obvious ways? The fishbowl:the world of contemporary poetry and the academy
May 14, 2013
I defy you to read the first chapter and not want to read the entire book. Orr says we approach poetry the wrong way, like we have to understand it all and wring the meaning from it with grim purpose. Instead, he proposes that we approach poetry as though it were Belgium: don't expect to understand everything, realise they do things differently here, but admire the sights and enjoy the occasional glimpse of insight you do get.
The rest of the book is a run through the choices poets make, the squabbles they have amongst themselves, and why they matter (or not) for the reader. Orr is opinionated, he's our tour guide through the Europe of Modern Poetry, and he's happy to hustle us past great sights and suggest we notice various features (tiny willy, detail in the eyes, how heavy it must be to carry that bronze all that way, don't worry nobody else knows what this means either).
It's fun but does requires some investment of mental effort. Then again, you've picked up a book subtitled "A Guide to Modern Poetry". Of course you're going to have to think.
The rest of the book is a run through the choices poets make, the squabbles they have amongst themselves, and why they matter (or not) for the reader. Orr is opinionated, he's our tour guide through the Europe of Modern Poetry, and he's happy to hustle us past great sights and suggest we notice various features (tiny willy, detail in the eyes, how heavy it must be to carry that bronze all that way, don't worry nobody else knows what this means either).
It's fun but does requires some investment of mental effort. Then again, you've picked up a book subtitled "A Guide to Modern Poetry". Of course you're going to have to think.
October 22, 2013
I was hopeful about this book for two reasons: I thought I might recommend it to my brother, who doesn't 'get' poetry, as a beginner's guide; and I thought it would give me a sense of the poetry landscape and where my work might fit. I was mostly disappointed (definitely on the first count--you need some familiarity with the terrain for this book to be meaningful). I did get some sense of the landscape, but not in the way I thought. I found the chapter on the academy not only depressing, but also somewhat myopic. Poetry is 'happening' outside the academy, by poets not associated with the academy (at least out here in the hinterlands). They'd probably be called 'amateurs' by those in the academy, but to me one of the beauties of poetry is its participatory nature. All that said, i did enjoy the book. Very snappy writing. Though for some reason Orr's use of 'he' for a generic poet really bugged me. Probably just the chip on MY shoulder.
March 16, 2016
I love to read, but I don’t know how to read well. I read widely, but I don’t read deeply.
So what is a fifty-four-year-old big reader with a busy life to do to correct this?
Read something that teaches one how to read deeply, of course. Of course.
I nervously checked this book out of the public library. I love poetry more than any other writing, but I know less about poetry than any other type of writing. Would I find anything of value in this book?
Yes, happily, I found that David Orr was the perfect person to turn to in order to write a useful and clever book about poetry. Beautiful and Pointless is a wonderful book for anyone who loves poetry. The text of this book is poetry, with lots of apt metaphors and similes. It’s humorous, too, which I found a great relief.
Read this book. Read this book if you like poetry. Read this book if you don’t. It’s that good.
So what is a fifty-four-year-old big reader with a busy life to do to correct this?
Read something that teaches one how to read deeply, of course. Of course.
I nervously checked this book out of the public library. I love poetry more than any other writing, but I know less about poetry than any other type of writing. Would I find anything of value in this book?
Yes, happily, I found that David Orr was the perfect person to turn to in order to write a useful and clever book about poetry. Beautiful and Pointless is a wonderful book for anyone who loves poetry. The text of this book is poetry, with lots of apt metaphors and similes. It’s humorous, too, which I found a great relief.
Read this book. Read this book if you like poetry. Read this book if you don’t. It’s that good.
April 2, 2013
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I went in thinking it would be an overview of modern poetry, with bits from poets I should try and why they're great. Orr, however, goes for a much broader overview of the craft with chapters like "The Political", "The Fishbowl", and "Why Bother?". Some bits were boring - his attempt to help us understand the modern poet just let me depressed. All these catty, unhappy people... I didn't like them any more once I knew them. On the other hand the chapter on ambition really made me think. What is ambition in the first place? Why does one person have it but another does not? And why do those views change over time? Lots of food for thought.
Orr has a knack for figurative language and examples that make you smile, even if my eyes glazed over during the slower parts. Overall a meh read.
Orr has a knack for figurative language and examples that make you smile, even if my eyes glazed over during the slower parts. Overall a meh read.
November 13, 2012
I love Orr's opening chapter, listen to this introduction;
... it’s not necessarily helpful to talk about poetry as if it were a device to be assembled or a religious experience to be undergone. Rather, it would be useful to talk about poetry as if it were, for example, Belgium. (…) The important thing is that you’d know you were going to be confused, or at least occasionally at loss, and you’d accept that confusion as part of the experience. … (To “get” Belgium, you need not know the Brussels phone book). … The art form (poetry) is enormous and perplexing, and at least half of it is of interest only to scholars and the certifiably disturbed. … As with a vacation in Belgium, all you need is a little patience and the motivation to book your tickets.
... it’s not necessarily helpful to talk about poetry as if it were a device to be assembled or a religious experience to be undergone. Rather, it would be useful to talk about poetry as if it were, for example, Belgium. (…) The important thing is that you’d know you were going to be confused, or at least occasionally at loss, and you’d accept that confusion as part of the experience. … (To “get” Belgium, you need not know the Brussels phone book). … The art form (poetry) is enormous and perplexing, and at least half of it is of interest only to scholars and the certifiably disturbed. … As with a vacation in Belgium, all you need is a little patience and the motivation to book your tickets.
July 15, 2011
I bought this based simply on the title, not realizing it was not meant for actual poets to read, but rather those not familiar with poetry/not totally comfortable with it. That said, I can't think of a single non-poet I'd recommend this book to, for the purpose of understanding better what poets do, why they do it, and how they talk about it. Nothing here rang true for me as a poet in terms of the conversations I have with poet friends, and not much here seemed to be truly applicable only to "modern" poetry as opposed to poetry in general. Not sure why this author wrote this book, or who the ideal audience might be. It's not badly written, but the book itself seems fairly pointless.
December 3, 2017
Orr has written a trim, caring, and at times extremely funny book. Unfortunately, he writes like I talk. There is so much hedging and doubling back and thick tangents completely encircling the central point that pictographically his writing would look like a hedge maze. At least when I write, I can make it stronger.
The first sentence of his introduction: "This book is about modern poetry." And then immediately, "But a book about modern poetry can't be as confidently 'about' its subject as a book, about, say, college football or soap operas or dog shows or the pasta of Northern Italy."
In his chapter "the political" (even his titles lack the confidence to stand proud in title case), he ends the introductory section with
It's a fair point, but did he really need to call democracy idiotic (one word) and then abase himself with fifteen words of clarification that he still thinks democracy is the best form of government?
And then there's the chapter "form." The longest chapter in the book and I think the best. He starts by breaking out the lines of a popular thriller and comparing it to a published poem and asking (to paraphrase) "would you recognize the 'real' poem if you didn't know? Funny. But then he goes back and forth through examples just to conclude that the lines between not-poetry and poetry and between different types of poetry, are all blurry. Even that isn't enough ambiguity, for he says, "Now, of course, having spent eighteen pages carefully outlining three approaches to formalism, I have to confess: These categories are barely categories."
His chapter entitled "ambition" got my hopes up for more force, but ultimately, I think Orr could have avoided most of the back-and-forth examples and counterexamples in the chapter by just Tabooing his words and in place of the word "great," tried to guess at his various speakers' intended meanings. I think he would have found that the two most common uses were "intended to maximally inspire everyone" like a Whitman poem, and "containing transcendent insight," like a Dickenson poem. So Elizabeth Bishop is "containing transcendent insight" but Robert Lowell "intended to maximally inspire everyone" and the different greatnesses of the two poets he spent the most time on would have been explained.
Past a chapter (the fishbowl) about the discomforts of the small community of poetry and you reach the summary chapter, entitled "why bother?" He starts off doing the opposite--trying to shoot down every argument for reading poetry, in the course of which he dismisses the idea that poetry is "language at its most distilled and most powerful" (Rita Dove), because the Nike slogan is more concise than a James Merrill poem and Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is more moving than a William Carlos William's intimate self-portrait poem. Good grief. "Just do it," is rather pithy, yes. So is "Got milk?" and for that matter "truthiness." But so is "a rose is a rose is a rose" and "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and "rage rage against the dying of the light." And does Orr seriously think MLK Jr's rhetorical virtuosity and moral vision was not distilled and empowered by hundreds of readings of the long poetic work-in-translation we know as the King James Bible?
Bizarrely, Orr seems unwilling to defend poetry even against "collecting interesting bits of bark" and says "I can only say that if you do choose to give your attention to poetry, as against all the other things you might turn to instead, that choice can be meaningful." (Only "can"? Those are some good odds, man!) And the story of his awakening to poetry ends "Had I, then, fallen in love with poetry? Well, we were certainly living together."
The end of his book (aside from a touching coda about reading poetry to his dying father) is this:
So, for me, the self-doubt ultimately smothered Orr's highly enjoyable wit (he says the idea that poetry is difficult work yet also uniquely able to move us makes it sound "like solving a calculus problem while being simultaneously zapped with a cattle prod" and describes the feelings elicited by bad personal poetry as like listening to a person sing a tone-deaf karaoke song in dedication to his dead mother). Perhaps a worthwhile read, but I like a guide through the bewilderness to wield the machete a bit more.
The first sentence of his introduction: "This book is about modern poetry." And then immediately, "But a book about modern poetry can't be as confidently 'about' its subject as a book, about, say, college football or soap operas or dog shows or the pasta of Northern Italy."
In his chapter "the political" (even his titles lack the confidence to stand proud in title case), he ends the introductory section with
Rare is the poet who doesn't view himself as deeply invested in political life, and yet the sloppy, compromised, and frequently idiotic business of democracy--which is, for all its flaws, the way most political change occurs in the country--rarely attracts the attention of our best poets. Is this the inevitable order of things? Or are all the talkers simply talking past each other.
It's a fair point, but did he really need to call democracy idiotic (one word) and then abase himself with fifteen words of clarification that he still thinks democracy is the best form of government?
And then there's the chapter "form." The longest chapter in the book and I think the best. He starts by breaking out the lines of a popular thriller and comparing it to a published poem and asking (to paraphrase) "would you recognize the 'real' poem if you didn't know? Funny. But then he goes back and forth through examples just to conclude that the lines between not-poetry and poetry and between different types of poetry, are all blurry. Even that isn't enough ambiguity, for he says, "Now, of course, having spent eighteen pages carefully outlining three approaches to formalism, I have to confess: These categories are barely categories."
His chapter entitled "ambition" got my hopes up for more force, but ultimately, I think Orr could have avoided most of the back-and-forth examples and counterexamples in the chapter by just Tabooing his words and in place of the word "great," tried to guess at his various speakers' intended meanings. I think he would have found that the two most common uses were "intended to maximally inspire everyone" like a Whitman poem, and "containing transcendent insight," like a Dickenson poem. So Elizabeth Bishop is "containing transcendent insight" but Robert Lowell "intended to maximally inspire everyone" and the different greatnesses of the two poets he spent the most time on would have been explained.
Past a chapter (the fishbowl) about the discomforts of the small community of poetry and you reach the summary chapter, entitled "why bother?" He starts off doing the opposite--trying to shoot down every argument for reading poetry, in the course of which he dismisses the idea that poetry is "language at its most distilled and most powerful" (Rita Dove), because the Nike slogan is more concise than a James Merrill poem and Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is more moving than a William Carlos William's intimate self-portrait poem. Good grief. "Just do it," is rather pithy, yes. So is "Got milk?" and for that matter "truthiness." But so is "a rose is a rose is a rose" and "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and "rage rage against the dying of the light." And does Orr seriously think MLK Jr's rhetorical virtuosity and moral vision was not distilled and empowered by hundreds of readings of the long poetic work-in-translation we know as the King James Bible?
Bizarrely, Orr seems unwilling to defend poetry even against "collecting interesting bits of bark" and says "I can only say that if you do choose to give your attention to poetry, as against all the other things you might turn to instead, that choice can be meaningful." (Only "can"? Those are some good odds, man!) And the story of his awakening to poetry ends "Had I, then, fallen in love with poetry? Well, we were certainly living together."
The end of his book (aside from a touching coda about reading poetry to his dying father) is this:
On the other hand, there's something lovely, if sad, in the bestowal of such a gift [the passionate, loving gift of one's time] on an activity that not only can never return the sentiment, but lacks even the consciousness to understand the giver's generosity. It seems beautifully pointless, or pointlessly beautiful, depending on your level of optimism.
So, for me, the self-doubt ultimately smothered Orr's highly enjoyable wit (he says the idea that poetry is difficult work yet also uniquely able to move us makes it sound "like solving a calculus problem while being simultaneously zapped with a cattle prod" and describes the feelings elicited by bad personal poetry as like listening to a person sing a tone-deaf karaoke song in dedication to his dead mother). Perhaps a worthwhile read, but I like a guide through the bewilderness to wield the machete a bit more.
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