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Gregory Orr
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Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved Paperback – September 1, 2005

by Gregory Orr (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 59 ratings
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“The heart of Orr’s poetry, now as ever, is the enigmatic image . . . mystical, carnal, reflective, wry.”—San Francisco Review

This book-length sequence of ecstatic, visionary lyrics recalls Rumi in its search for the beloved and its passionate belief in the healing qualities of art and beauty.

Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved is an incantatory celebration of the “Book,” an imaginary and self-gathering anthology of all the lyrics—both poems and songs—ever written. Each poem highlights a distinct aspect of the human condition, and together the poems explore love, loss, restoration, the beauty of the world, the beauty of the beloved, and the mystery of poetry. The purpose and power of the Book is to help us live by reconnecting us to the world and to our emotional lives.

I put the beloved
In a wooden coffin.
The fire ate his body;
The flames devoured her.
I put the beloved
In a poem or song.
Tucked it between
Two pages of the Book.
How bright the flames.
All of me burning,
All of me on fire
And still whole.

There is nothing quite like this book—an “active anthology” in the best sense—where individuals find the poems and songs that will sustain them. Or the poems find them.

Gregory Orr is the author of eight books of poetry, four volumes of criticism, and a memoir. He has received numerous awards for his work, most recently the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Orr has taught at the University of Virginia since 1975 and was, for many years, the poetry editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    200 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Copper Canyon Press
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.6 x 7.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781556592294
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1556592294
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Orr's first book since The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems (2002) has little in common with the hushed, observant lyric that made his reputation in the 1970s; this eighth collection is, instead, a confident, mystical, expansive project, whose very clear short poems (almost 200 of them) constitute a meditation and ritual for grieving a lost beloved. The first poem invokes the Egyptian god Osiris, whose lover Isis resurrected him by collecting his scattered parts: "We must find them... As an anthologist might collect/ All the poems that matter," Orr intones. As he pursues that goal, however, his own poems can be overbroad in focus: "The heart knows all/ These songs/ And a million of its own," one poem says. "The risk is always there," a later poem states, "And the challenge, too: To take it in, to feel it, and then/ To speak it back in poems and songs." "When the beloved dies," he explains later, "It's only to ask more of you,/ So you become richer from giving." Near the end, Orr describes his own poetry as "a silent saying/ Of all/ We hold dear." Poems about earlier poets (Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Apollinaire) add detail but fail to change the tone. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Gregory Orr is the author of ten books of poetry, four collections of criticism, and a memoir that was selected by Publishers Weekly as a "Best Book of the Year." The former poetry editor for the Virginia Quarterly Review, Orr teaches at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1556592299
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Copper Canyon Press; First Edition (September 1, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781556592294
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1556592294
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 7.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

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Gregory Orr

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
59 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Steven Elliott
5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry For Survival
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2008
Verified Purchase
I don't remember now how I first encountered this book of poems. I bought a copy, read it straight through, and was so moved that I bought several more copies and gave them out to my closest friends last Christmas, 2007. I preach and teach at church and I read several of the poems to our congregation. While not a religious book, Orr's themes are the universal ones that touch all of us: life, death, loss, love and, of course the role poetry plays (like faith) in comprehending them all. I suppose, because of my own experiences of significant loss early in life (my best friend, my sister...), Orr's history resonated with me. I had no idea. A few short months after I fell in love with this book, in February 2008, my own precious 18 year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Orr's book was still sitting on my nightstand, and, while I have read many helpful books about loss and grief, nothing has spoken to me like Concerning The Book That Is The Body Of The Beloved. I have turned to it again and again, and everytime I read it I find new insight, solace, a source of strength. As I have grieved, I have marveled at the total authenticity of Orr's writing. Here is someone who has passed through the fire, survived, and describes the experience, now, as a "blessing." The pain and loss has been transfigured and Orr has returned to bless others with the wisdom and compassion he has gained. It is a message of hope to those who are blind and lost because of their grief. Yesterday morning I read several poems in tears out loud to my wife from the Book that perfectly captured our experience...and offered a small glimmer of hope.
I simply can't recommend this Book enough. I have re-read this book more than any book in my considerable library. It a dear friend, a roadmap, a lantern. If the house was on fire, this book would be one of the precious things I would gather and take with me. It is that good. You don't have to be an intellectual or a poet to understand or appreciate it. Only human. The language is simple and direct and unpretentious. I am amazed at Orr's ability to address our deepest experiences without getting lost in the language. If you like Rumi or Rilke, you will find a familiar voice here. I am a poet myself. I am not sure I have come to the place where I believe that poetry resurrects the beloved. I wish it could. But poetry, at least the poetry Mr. Orr has written, has been a life saver. It has helped me to survive.
37 people found this helpful
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A. Towner
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book of poetry
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
Having followed his early poetry this book when it came out was like an awakening and filled me with joy. A friend I gave it to cried and thanked me repeatedly. The poems function singularly on their own and flow as one big poem through the entire book. Amazing
2 people found this helpful
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LiMCZ
5.0 out of 5 stars Great poetic voice
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2020
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Recommend it highly
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Seth Moody
5.0 out of 5 stars A holy text. If you're a secular humanist, ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
A holy text. If you're a secular humanist, read this. If you're religious and believe your holy text can't be beat, read this.
2 people found this helpful
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Ilya V. Kaminsky
5.0 out of 5 stars powerful, wise, moving book
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2006
It is rare when a recognized poet, at the very height

of his talent, gives up the maneuvers and troupes that

gained him success, turns away--to begin something

completely new. "It is myself that I revise," Yeats

wrote. And in this powerful new collection, Gregory

Orr does just that. "Concerning the Book that Is the

Body of the Beloved" is a 200 page long spiritual

mediation of epic proportion, described as "an

incantatory celebration of the Book, an imaginary and

self-gathering anthology of all the lyrics-both poems

and songs-ever written." The description is apt, but

somewhat limiting. For in addition to its imaginary

epic ambition to be "an anthology gathered / since the

beginning of time, / gathering itself" the book also

serves as an ars poetica, a declaration of this poet's

intent to be open ("the poem didn't express / emotion,

it was emotion") in giving the voice ("to give form /

to her love and grief") to the deceased, and in doing

so to find his voice's origin. Orr's philosophy

touches upon the limitation of human reach ("unable to

touch / the body of the beloved because / inches of it

cover your skin"), uttering ("do words outlast / the

world / they describe?") and vision ("too many

mysteries... Why don't we stop") to propose the feeling

as the key to our understanding of our being here ("to

see the beloved, / to be seen by the beloved: / that's

where being starts"). His philosophy is very

skillfully grounded by the intimate details of this

world: "When my kids look for me I hope / they can

find min in the house, / or reach me by phone. // When

that won't work, / I hope they can find me in... the

poem or song someone wrote / or one of my own." This

grounding of the subliminal is very effective as the

collection proceeds to offer elegies to Orr's brother,

love poems to his wife, and moving invocations of

authors of various times, from Sapho to Apollinaire.

Observing his own time, Orr also serves an angry

indictment of the stagnation taking place in today's

literary arena, of writers who are "half-asleep" in

their work, who "could care less". For Orr cares. The

passion ("to feel, to feel, to feel") is evident.

Orr invests an enormous amount of emotional energy

("for me, my brother / ...the first departure / that

tore my heart") in the brief, spare lyrics. That is,

perhaps, what makes the book work so well: the volume

of Orr's voice can be loud or quiet, a whisper or an

incantation, but it is always emotionally charged,

always appealing to the reader's senses. It is by the

way of the heart that his wisdom comes: "You might

think the things I say / are too simple for words, /

too embarrassing to be spoken. // But if I repeat the

obvious, / where's the harm in that? // May be it was

always simple: / loss surrounds us".

The book's larger frame is the imaginary spiritual

text of "a self gathering of poems" that bear witness

to the world in which they are written, providing the

key to that world. This clear but quite ambitious

structure is balanced by Orr's skill as a poet. For

instance, he can be very musical: "Scar they stare at.

/ Scar they're scared of...a brightness that frightens."

He can also show how directness can reflect one's

inner turmoil, achieving insight: "A few things you

might want to know: / I am not an idiot. / I am not a

mystic. I've read / poems since before most people /

on the planet were born. / Read them and written them,

too. All the time believing they helped / me to live.

I was right. But / I was also wrong. /...Loss seemed to

me / the most of it. I believed in love / but I

thought its name was loss. / And worse: when I said

"life" / I meant "death." When I said "death" / I have

no idea what I meant."

What is most astonishing for me about "Concerning the Book

that is the Body of the Beloved" is that is

constitutes a book-long spiritual undertaking that's

also-unlike most projects of this sort--is very good

and readable poetry. Orr's charged and emotional lyric

reminds of Song of Songs' musical tide ("The world

comes into the poem./The poem comes into the

world./...As with lovers:/When it's right you can't

say/who is kissing whom") as well as the plain-spoken

intensity of Rumi. The composition of his collection

as a whole, however, and the thinking behind it, are

quite complex--in a way Edmond Jabes's work is a

complex tapestry ("I read the book for years / and

never understood a word") where the meaning is given

for a moment, and then taken away; but the

understanding remains. It is a wonderful, moving book. I recommend it highly.

--Ilya Kaminsky
21 people found this helpful
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