Beautiful & pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry–David Orr (HarperCollins, 2011)
“poets are constantly confronted not only with widespread ignorance about their art, but with the fact that anything they write will inevitably disappoint an audience conditioned to associate poetry with sublimity.”
At the risk of jumping on the advertising bandwagon, touting various ways of keeping those New Year’s resolutions, January’s pick just might offer some support in a quest to expand intellectual horizons. David Orr’s Beautiful & pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry takes a look at a medium which can be intimidating for some readers. As Orr’s poignantly funny introduction states, the “death of poetry” has been declaimed and debated for years, but real discussions about reading and exploring contemporary poetry, aside from technical or sentimental “how-to” guides, are more difficult finds. Orr, poetry critic for The New York Times Book Review, presents an accessible look at the thought processes present in modern poetry. Rather than giving the reader a treatise on iambs, meter, and symbolism, or a lecture on how to be “emotionally open” to the power of poetry, Orr assumes his reader’s emotional and academic intelligence and gets on with a thought-provoking treatment of some of the questions with which poetry grapples, offering the reader a chance at interpretation with the inclusion of numerous poetical fragments in varying styles to illustrate his points.
Beautiful & pointless presents a mature discussion that respects its readers without alienating them. The questions under scrutiny here are of real consequence rather than purely sentimental or academic. How do people generally perceive poetry as a genre and why? What does it actually mean for a poem to be “personal,” and why are we drawn to this? Orr approaches these questions with an elegant simplicity that cuts directly to the matter at hand. This is not a book that is soppily congratulatory. Some poems are bad-badly written, poorly constructed. Orr empowers the reader to make these sorts of judgements and fights to redeem poetry from the realm of untouchable emotional expression and remind readers that this medium is an art form that can be both enjoyed and critiqued, not simply endured or tolerated. Readers are encouraged to mentally and critically engage with poetry, not to slog through frustratedly or to unquestioningly admire.
The traditional history of poetry and major poets is worked in here in an unorthodox fashion. Instead of a chronological timeline of “major poets,” which must, by necessity, be cursory at the best of times and deliberately exclusive, elitist, or biased at the worst, Orr presents major poetic voices as they deal with the issues under discussion in his navigation of poetic questions and themes. Particularly rewarding are Orr’s treatments of politics and form in poetry. The work focuses specifically on the ways that contemporary poets play with form in new ways, and through this conversation Orr gently illuminates traditional poetic form as well. In his treatment of poetry and politics, Orr elucidates both the pitfalls and the power of political poetry. “One of the problems with political poetry,” Orr states, “is that…it exists at the mercy of time, history, and other people. But that doesn’t mean that poetry itself is passive…as a maker of poems, a poet is always engaged in battle, though the opponents may be unclear, the stakes unknowable, and the victories and defeats felt far away, in different domains, by other people than himself.” The work explicitly condemns the idea of poetry and poets as “passive.” Orr reminds us that the beauty we experience in poetry comes about through hard work, not magic. Furthermore, this fact demands serious consideration, not disappointment. Orr offers us an image of the poet not as a prophetic oracle strumming Orpheus’ lyre from upon a distant plane, but as a figure engaged with all aspects of our mundane world, including the frustrating world of work. All sorts of poetic motivations are acknowledged here, from the deeply personal to the passionately political, even to the purely economical. Still Orr’s work leaves us far from viewing poetry as “pointless.” Beautiful & pointless shows us works that captivate both hearts and minds and wrestle with issues that shape our world.
Orr’s work strives to remind us that beauty, though it may not appear to affect the world as directly as other modes of action, is both necessary and powerful. Beautiful & pointless is, in part, Orr’s struggle to put the value of poetry into words. What he does assure us, is 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…out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident.” This is hopefully what this book has to offer its readers.
In this new year, we at Compassionate U hope that the abundance in your lives may be made evident. Be encouraged to try something new, or return to pursuits that you have once loved. Take time to enjoy the beautiful in life, as this is never truly pointless. If you like, start with Orr’s work, which serves up both laughs and poignancy, and offers a great starter reading list if you’re ready to take the plunge (or dip your toe) into modern poetry. Bishop, Brooks, Collins, Larkin, O’Hara, Ryan, and more are all there. I wish you a very happy new year, and happy reading!
