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.

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PAW’s December 2025 cover, with a photo of Michael Park ’98.
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December 2025

Judge Michael Park ’98; shifts in DEI initiatives; a night at the new art museum.