Elizabeth Lund Reviews Gregory Orr's Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry

For those of us who are looking for answers about poetry, Gregory Orr's new Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry is one way to get to the bottom of a sometimes daunting endeavor. The second book by Orr written to demystify poetry (the first, Poetry as Survival, was published in 2002), A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry casts "a wide net again [...] presenting luminous ideas that may help novices and teachers alike," Elizabeth Lund remarks in her review of the new guidebook at the Washington Post. One helpful reminder Orr imparts, which Lund echoes in her review, is that: "lyric poetry — which allows an individual to make sense of his or her experience — has been present in every culture and age." On from there: 

It “helps us live by expressing our experience and at the same time moving the experience a bit away from us — to the world of words, where it can be shaped or dramatized into meaning.” That ability makes lyric poetry compelling in a crisis “because it is superbly designed to handle both aspects of experience: the reality of disorder and the self’s need for some kind of order.”

Orr’s assertions are comforting and empowering, especially since he notes that disorder can be internal or external and negative or positive, ranging, for example, from a natural disaster or the loss of a loved one to the surprise of romantic love or adventure. Poets use ordering patterns to process and convey their experiences in ways that can be paradoxically simple and complex.

The term “ordering patterns” isn’t just a euphemism for stanzas, rhyme schemes and meter. Poems are “turbulently alive with the disorder that plagues or exalts us,” and when we order our words, we create an expressive but stable structure.

Learn more at the Washington Post.