David Orr (journalist)

David Orr (born 1974) is an American journalist, attorney, and poet who is noted for his reviews and essays on poetry.[1]

Orr grew up in Columbia, South Carolina.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from Princeton University in 1996,[3] and subsequently a law degree from Yale Law School. While still a law student, Orr published a review in Poetry Magazine.[4] While practicing law, Orr has written reviews and essays for Poetry Magazine, The New York Times, and other periodicals. Orr was awarded the 2004 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing of the National Book Critics Circle.[5] In 2005 he became a columnist for the New York Times Sunday Review of Books, where his On Poetry column appears occasionally.[2] He was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in 2006-2007.[3]

Several of Orr's poems have been published in Poetry Magazine.[6] In 2011 he published Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry,[7] of which Craig Morgan Teicher has written, "David Orr, the New York Times Book Review's poetry columnist as well as a poet, is a guide after my own heart as he seeks not just to initiate the uninitiated in his new book, Beautiful & Pointless, but also to hold a mirror up to the poetry world itself."[8]

Further reading

• Orr, David (April 2, 2006). "'Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box,' by Elizabeth Bishop: Rough Gems". The New York Times. Recommended as exemplary by Edward Champion.[9]
• Orr, David (March 11, 2007). "Annals of Poetry". The New York Times. This article was a response to Dana Goodyear's article in The New Yorker about Ruth Lilly's $200 million bequest to the Poetry Foundation.[10] The bequest, the Poetry Foundation's response to it, and the articles by Goodyear and Orr have been controversial.[11][12]
• Orr, David (May 6, 2010). "On Poetry: Robert Hass's Empathy and Desire". The New York Times. Example of Orr's occasional column, On Poetry, from The New York Times Sunday Book Review.
• "An appreciation of poet Elizabeth Bishop". The Charlie Rose Show. April 28, 2006. Archived from the original on 2009-04-08. Television program featuring Sam Tanenhaus (editor of the New York Times Book Review) as guest host, Alice Quinn (editor of Elizabeth Bishop's unpublished poetry), and Orr in a discussion of Bishop's poetry and life.

References

1. Oppenheimer, Mark (November 2009). "David Orr: On how he wields his poetry power" (PDF). New Haven Review (5): 69–76. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-14.
2. "Up Front". The New York Times. April 24, 2005.
3. "Opening up the insular poetry world: David Orr '96 writes about poetry for nonpoets". Princeton Alumni Weekly. February 14, 2007.
4. Orr, David (1999). "The Poetics of Populism". Poetry. 174 (4): 231–239.
5. Shapiro, Gary (March 25, 2005). "Celebrating The Career Of Myron Kandel". The New York Sun.
6. "David Orr". The Poetry Foundation.
7. Orr, David (April 5, 2011). Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry. Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-167345-0.
8. Teicher, Craig Morgan (April 14, 2011). "The Secrets of Poetryland: David Orr reveals what poets and readers need to know about each other". Slate.
9. Champion, Edward (July 10, 2006). "In Defense of David Orr". Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits.
10. Goodyear, Dana (February 19/26, 2007 (double issue)). "The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?". The New Yorker. Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. Casteen, John (Summer 2007). "Shoot the Messenger: Dana Goodyear, David Orr, and the Stewards of Poetry". The Virginia Quarterly Review: 272–273. Archived from the original on 2010-08-23.
12. Sklar, Rachel (March 12, 2007). "Literary Feud! NYTBR Smacks Up The New Yorker On...Poetry". The Huffington Post.

External links

• "David Orr". Retrieved 2011-02-17. Author website.