David Orr (journalist)

{{short description|American journalist, attorney, and poet (born 1974)}}

David Orr (born 1974) is an American journalist, attorney, and poet who is noted for his reviews and essays on poetry.{{cite journal|title=David Orr: On how he wields his poetry power |journal=New Haven Review |issue=5 |date=November 2009 |last=Oppenheimer |first=Mark |pages=69–76 |url=http://newhavenreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/orr.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714172754/http://newhavenreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/orr.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-14 }}

Orr grew up in Columbia, South Carolina.{{cite news |work=The New York Times |title=Up Front |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/books/review/24UPFRONT.html |date=April 24, 2005 }} He earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from Princeton University in 1996,{{cite news |work=Princeton Alumni Weekly |date=February 14, 2007 |title=Opening up the insular poetry world: David Orr '96 writes about poetry for nonpoets |url=https://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW06-07/08-0214/books.html}} and subsequently a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. While still a law student, Orr published a review in Poetry Magazine.{{cite journal |title=The Poetics of Populism |last=Orr |first=David |volume=174 |issue=4 |pages=231–239 |journal=Poetry |year=1999}} 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.{{cite news |work=The New York Sun |last=Shapiro |first=Gary |title=Celebrating The Career Of Myron Kandel |date=March 25, 2005 |url=http://www.nysun.com/on-the-town/celebrating-the-career-of-myron-kandel/ }} In 2005, he became a columnist for the New York Times Sunday Review of Books, where his On Poetry column appears occasionally. He was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in 2006-2007.

Several of Orr's poems have been published in Poetry Magazine.{{cite web |publisher=The Poetry Foundation |title=David Orr |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5156}} In 2011, he published Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry,{{cite book |last=Orr |first=David |title=Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry |url=https://archive.org/details/beautifulpointle0000orrd |url-access=registration |publisher=Harper |date=April 5, 2011 |isbn=978-0-06-167345-0}} 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."{{cite news |last=Teicher |first=Craig Morgan |work=Slate |title=The Secrets of Poetryland: David Orr reveals what poets and readers need to know about each other |date=April 14, 2011 |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2290816/}}

==Further reading==

• {{cite news |title='Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box,' by Elizabeth Bishop: Rough Gems |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/books/review/02orr.html |date=April 2, 2006 | first=David | last=Orr}} Recommended as exemplary by Edward Champion.{{cite web |title=In Defense of David Orr |last=Champion |first=Edward |url=http://www.edrants.com/in-praise-of-david-orr/ |work=Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits |date=July 10, 2006}}
• {{cite news |title=Annals of Poetry |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/books/review/Orr.t.html |date=March 11, 2007 | first=David | last=Orr}} 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.{{cite magazine |last=Goodyear |first=Dana |title=The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry? |magazine=The New Yorker |version=February 19/26, 2007 (double issue) |url=http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_goodyear}} The bequest, the Poetry Foundation's response to it, and the articles by Goodyear and Orr have been controversial.{{cite journal |title=Shoot the Messenger: Dana Goodyear, David Orr, and the Stewards of Poetry |first=John |last=Casteen |journal=The Virginia Quarterly Review |date=Summer 2007 |pages=272–273 |url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/summer/casteen-shoot-the-messenger/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823102244/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/summer/casteen-shoot-the-messenger/ |archive-date=2010-08-23 }}{{cite web |title=Literary Feud! NYTBR Smacks Up The New Yorker On...Poetry |last=Sklar |first=Rachel |authorlink=Rachel Sklar |date=March 12, 2007 |work=The Huffington Post |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2007/03/12/literary-feud-nytbr_e_43191.html}}
• {{cite news |title=On Poetry: Robert Hass's Empathy and Desire |date=May 6, 2010 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/books/review/Orr-t.html | first=David | last=Orr}} Example of Orr's occasional column, On Poetry, from The New York Times Sunday Book Review.
• {{cite web |title=An appreciation of poet Elizabeth Bishop |work=The Charlie Rose Show |date=April 28, 2006 |url=http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/433 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408225815/http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/433 |archive-date=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.