Gregory Orr Reading
“Whatever one loves is beautiful.” Sappho
Orr’s reading had that line as its spine, its epigraph, its pulse, its theme.
An incantation. His hands are like a lumberjack pianist’s hands.
His voice was smooth and clear and deep and friendly, a wolf from water. He read to us from his whole idea of a book of songs from all time, that place the songs are all kept. I love this idea. I loved seeing my students there at the reading. I wish all poetry readings could be this pure, this transcendent, this juicy and plain as breakfast.
He said we need the poems (rock songs are poems) when we overwhelmed by love or loss. And when are we not?
This is the project of poetry: it is the project of resurrection.
He said he wrote for so so long–ten books–about loss, about grief, and now he must write about being in love with the world, loss yes grief yes, but the world! yes. That is his project. To write all the poems of the beloved. The beloved is the world. But he keeps the poems short. The secret, Voltaire said, of being boring is to say everything.
Orr wants to celebrate the repository of all the work that celebrates the human experience: love, joy, loss. The poems make it easier to feel a little bit less lost in the world.
(I wish I could write short poems. But I write long essays. I wish I knew poems by heart. But I make my students memorize, proxy memorization. I wish I knew an Orr by heart. The secret to loving poetry is memorizing it.)
If you are doing it right, Orr said, love is dangerous, fun, and agonizing. IF you are doing it right.
Welcome, he said. But be alert. If someone says that on the first date (and we should) would you go on a second date?
Here’s how to write he said. (He quoted a Turkish poet–who?). You write in a tone of amazement. HERE IS ANOTHER THING I DID NOT KNOW I LOVED!
Related posts:
The Turkish poet: Nazim Hikmet (spelling may vary). Orr is one of my family. I have memorized “His Grief” from ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE and sent poems from recent books to friends. He is the real thing. And those hands, that incantation–so like his mentor, Stanley Kunitz, with a touch of Bly thrown in. Heather, you must read his memoir and also POETRY AS SURVIVAL. LOL, J
Personally, I love the Voltaire quote. So much so that I’m putting it in my email signature. Thanks for passing it on.