Beautiful & Pointless

Starred review from March 28, 2011
This debut from New York Times Book Review poetry columnist Orr is equal parts friendly invitation for the uniniti-ated into the joys and possibilities of reading poetry for the uninitiated and opinionated cultural critique of the contemporary American poetry scene, on which Orr has an unusual vantage point, being one of the only poetry critics with a wide readership, while also being a poet himself. Divided into six chaptersâ--with titles like "The Personal," "The Fishbowl," and "Why Bother?"--âwhich, for Orr, are revealing windows into how poetry workds and why it is, and isnât, important, the book covers a heck of a lot without getting lost in the esoteric. Orr manages to make plain the reasoning behind, say, poetic form (which, Orr says, "can be compared to a game.... Think, for example, about baseball") or the changing social structure of the poetry world ("Itâs more of a guild now than a country club"), while also saying plenty of things that will make poets take a good long look in the mirror. Finally, Orr wants to levelheadedly emphasize that poetry isnât intrinsically special or holy, but that shouldnât take away from the importance it holds, or could hold, in many peopleâs lives: "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."