Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry

(Harper)

The author aims to take some of the mystery and fear out of reading modern poetry. In this witty guide, Orr tries to give readers a “sense of what modern poets think about, [and] how those poets talk about what they’re thinking about.” Orr is the poetry columnist for The New York Times Book Review and a former Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

Paw in print

Image
An inside look up the inside of a building, with four floors and a dinosaur skeleton visible.
The Latest Issue

April 2026

Inside the new ES and SEAS complex; kudos for austerity; jazz at Princeton.