| Contents |
pt. ONE From The Book of the Beloved and Us, Which Is the Book of Eros -- Even before speech -- Her eye and my "I" -- The world looks -- Hoarding your joys and despairs -- It's all far too large -- Sometimes the beloved's -- When we were young -- There you were -- stalling -- A smile on the face -- "So, who will give -- With your embrace -- And when the beloved -- We could say -- Reciprocity -- that's where -- If to say it once -- For such a journey -- To see the beloved -- Voice of the beloved -- The beloved insists -- Extravagant catastrophe -- Here's "anguish" and over -- Lots of sorrow and a little joy -- I dreamed she'd arrive by -- The journey already so -- There's the daisy: white petals -- Ask the tree or the house; -- Were we invited? -- Bending over spring's first rose -- Hold off, rain -- To be alive! -- When the world -- Wanting it to last -- To loll in a sensual torpor -- Loss and loss and more -- FROM The Book of Loss and Grief -- When we lost the beloved -- There's no use in closing -- Everything taken from us -- Welcome to the kingdom -- To die and yet -- Place the beloved last was -- To learn by heart -- If the world were to end -- When the coffin was closed -- Would I have withdrawn? -- Not to make loss beautiful -- Growing -- To speak too soon -- Love without loss -- What's over is over -- How easy to give up hope -- We let death take him -- Set beside the world's -- When the awful -- It wasn't death I discovered -- If deepest grief is hell -- "Sorrow makes us all -- When the beloved died -- I was asleep in uneasy -- That desolation is the door -- That T-shirt -- it smells -- Sorrow is good; -- So many were given only -- The hug, the clutch -- Autumn again. The leaves falling -- Not the loss alone -- Maybe it's not the end -- First, there was shatter -- In the Navajo origin story -- Oh, I know: the beloved -- FROM The First Book of the Book -- pt. One The Book of the Resurrection of the Beloved Imaged as the Story of Isis and Osiris -- Resurrection of the body of the beloved -- The beloved is dead. Limbs -- Who wants to lose the world -- When I open the Book -- It's not magic; it isn't a trick -- Sadness is there, too -- Isis kneels on the banks -- The poem is written on the body -- Oh, there's blood enough -- "What is life?" -- The things that die -- I read the Book for years -- You think I haven't known grief? -- I want to go back -- I saw my own body -- What death shatters -- No longer a part -- To lose the loved one -- There's nothing occult going on -- Can a river flow beside itself? -- Even the saddest poems have journeyed -- Concentrating on those motions -- Love and loss, then life again -- pt. Two The Book of the Body of the Beloved Imaged as a City Made of Poems -- It would have erased everything human -- Some say Adam and Eve -- If someone had said, when I was young -- Who needs plaques -- A thousand roads lead to it -- Until I heard Neruda read his poems -- Tang of salt in the walls -- You're invited to visit -- There's only one river -- So many brought here by water -- Love overwhelms us -- From a distance -- Not everyone in the city -- Consider Francois Villon -- Francis's "Canticle of the Creatures" -- Whenever its enemies besiege it -- White flag -- What's the Book after all but -- Sometimes, entering -- Today a letter arrived -- The poems we love -- what are they -- As I say aloud the opening line -- FROM The First Book of Singing, Which Is the Book of Resurrection of the Beloved -- Grief made you heavy -- Not many of them, it's true -- Who'd even dispute -- Who can measure the gratitude -- An anthology gathered -- Book of the beloved's resurrection -- Occult power of the alphabet -- Grief will come to you -- Letting go, when all you want is to hold -- You want -- Where is meaning -- Why should the grave be final? -- Each of us standing at a particular -- Weren't we more than -- Knowing loss always wins -- Human heart -- Flipping pages randomly -- And if not you, then who? -- Black marks -- Who says no lines are written -- The Book: Cosmic jukebox -- No way they can bury -- And that's the gist of it -- There's no mystery -- I never planned to die -- Everything dies. Nothing dies -- Can a poem do that? -- How lucky we are -- The mysteries we live among -- To feel, to feel, to feel -- pt. TWO FROM The First Book of the World, Which Is the Book of Changes -- The world, the world -- always -- Who needs another earth? -- To hold a pane of glass -- It's winter and I think of spring -- It was so easy to love him then -- no How many things -- "Surprise me," the beloved said -- It's time to turn the TV off -- Let's remake the world with words -- How beautiful -- Note to self: remember -- Cat curled asleep -- Waking now, and we didn't even know -- The hero who cuts a swath -- A pen's stronger -- They're empty but swollen, Simone Weil said -- Doesn't the soldier serve -- The terror and thrill -- Invisible distance between -- When, in Valmiki's epic -- Soon enough, the gods will keep their nasty -- Lyric Revises the World -- So obvious that the voice can cease -- Grief today? -- Humid morning -- Hummingbird's furious -- The world comes into the poem -- Weighed down with the weight -- The grapes taste good -- The beloved moves through the world -- Whitman's list of the things he could see -- I know now the beloved -- Where are you standing -- "Eternity" extends its seductive syllables -- Expected in one form -- We poets are always -- Might as well let go -- We know the world's unstable -- "Why not a brief respite?" -- If you believe Shakespeare's -- Yearning for permanence, and who wouldn't? -- FROM The Book of Questions, Which Is Also the Book of Suffering -- Well of course you could think -- Last night, a huge storm -- Traveling, you begin to long -- So many to choose from -- The motions so cautious -- Beloved -- word -- Your Yes against all those -- Sometimes only a groan emerges -- Bitterest of all -- Someone else called out -- Locked in your body -- How is it, by dusk -- Something you never even -- Trying hard just to listen and let -- There are questions -- Hunkered down -- Scar they stare at -- Sometimes we write -- Remember Jacob and the angry angel -- Some of us unlucky -- Those who wake in the middle -- Rain last night -- Could it all be said in a single poem -- Shattered? -- What suffering! Why isn't -- Weeping, weeping, weeping -- To add our own suffering -- FROM The Book of Searching, Which Is the Book of Risk -- All those years -- And isn't the world -- To open the Book -- What was it the beloved -- Ashes and charred sticks -- The lost beloved speaks -- Throwing away hope -- knowing -- From bliss to abyss -- And it happens, of course -- Why not admit terror's -- It's narrow, and no room -- Timorous me -- Not hoping for ghosts -- The beloved is in the Book -- Who'd want to be -- Sometimes, reading the Book -- When we're young there's lots -- Well, it can't be helped -- I ransacked the world -- Comes in all shapes -- Two things poems -- Written in a distant -- Why are we so scared of it -- Relying on a map? -- One thing's for sure -- This room crowded -- Clearing out the room -- Closing my fists -- To Guillaume Apollinaire, the beloved -- pt. THREE FROM The Book of the Body of the Beloved, Which Is Also the Second Book of Singing -- That ancient Egyptian poem -- This is my ode to O -- Most poems -- If a peach leads you into the world -- There's a long-ago scene I like -- Sije t'aime, prends garde a toil -- Some of us, when we're young -- Certain poems, because of their vowels -- Going and coming, but -- Bald, high-domed Taoist sage -- Autumn with its too-muchness -- According to the Big Bopper -- Ordinarily so mild, but suppose -- Some poems offer escape -- Loving those poets most -- Praising all creation, praising the world -- "Audacity of Bliss" -- that's what -- Dancing to her song -- Easy to gaze at stars -- "Astonied, stark in -- Here it is: a room chock-full -- Could be I'm just outside -- It's pretty much a consensus -- Jaw-drop when I first -- Desire in the vowels -- If words had lips -- Often, there's nothing -- Watching as words leap -- Suppose you could evoke -- Not all poems seek -- That song -- why would it be -- Little fish of feeling, small -- Bittersweet, bittersweet -- Flagrante delicto -- Words crowd around -- Longing alone won't make it so -- Asking again and again -- The poem no lifeless wonder -- Staying afloat by -- Poems that unbutton -- FROM The Book of Reading and Writing, Which Is the Book of Poets and Poems -- There on the page -- Space we make -- Reading the poem -- If not for those black scratches -- How could that Chinese poet -- You say you found the poem -- Moving by hints and piths -- The poet might wish -- Way back then when they -- Lead of the heart -- I thought I was hunting -- Suffering, grief, death -- That voice -- How is it those short lines -- Bright scissors -- And all that rage -- Rending it, tearing it -- Don't bother to ask -- As if that poem -- Some phrases move -- Scattered randomly -- Clutching a bottle of wine -- Praxilla's single poem -- Going to the reading -- The poet approaches the lectern -- The beloved is still -- The older I get and the more -- Totally determined -- Time pummels the whole globe -- Even when the words said -- Elegy for Jane Kenyon |
| Contents |
Note continued: Young, I took it all so -- Words not just the empty -- Sometimes the poem -- To believe so -- The critic Hazlitt, on a visit -- All the different books you read -- Here's how it is -- "The whole country torn -- When I was young I wanted -- It's what you could call -- Wilfred Owen's hunched -- This huge bridge, cabled -- Nothing? Not so much -- Well, of course -- Gerard Manley Hopkins put it succinctly -- As Shakespeare noted: poets -- All those poets for -- A bit of joy, a dollop of longing -- More stores being built -- His song was about the world -- As I get older and nearer -- FROM The Book of My Own Remembering -- Why should it all -- I was born on a small farm -- Childhood swimming hole -- I sat at my kindergarten desk -- When I was just a kid -- Half-dead cherry tree -- On the lawn, beside the red house -- Little card inked with your -- All morning, with gloved hands -- It's Memorial Day. After our march -- I remember him falling beside me -- The field where my brother died -- "He's already in heaven," she said -- If I wrote in a short story -- For me, my brother -- My mother so soon to die -- At the Sunday-school picnic -- From the houses of American engineers -- I pass the old beggar who sits -- It was a tiny, nameless, emerald bird -- My entire youth I hid -- "It happened for me at sixteen" -- If there's a god of amphetamine -- All afternoon they bobbed above us -- On a Highway East of Selma, Alabama -- When I was eighteen and a volunteer -- How small the eyes of hate -- How large the eyes of love -- Young, we waved flags -- Like any other man -- For years I couldn't speak -- When I lived alone in New York, studying -- We'd only just met, were -- Our first, exploratory meeting -- If we were two ships -- From the outset -- I like to think "I" and "you" -- Beloved, with your hair -- Back then I thought flowing -- Yesterday, against admonishment -- It consists of cliffs and plateaus -- Truth of it is: I was born -- My mother's joy -- Meander -- it's the name of a river -- Song of Old Lovers -- All this winter afternoon spent -- pt. FOUR FROM The Book of Words, Which Is the Book of Listening and Speaking -- At my age, you don't -- "And the word -- Taking the empty air -- Not fleeing our agony -- Who among us can speak -- Where did the beloved go? -- Vowels woven -- Poets writing words as -- River inside the river -- Saying the word -- Yes, our human -- Dull gray bundle of feathers -- How badly the world needs words -- What did someone cynically -- Words, am I -- Snow on the tree branch -- Each thing in the world -- Nouns doing -- Why try to seize what flows? -- Often just a few notes -- I don't remember -- If I wanted words, I could -- The old philosopher, dying -- If you're unsure what words can do -- What connects us to the world? -- This or that individual story -- "Doggie, doggie!" -- How much love can it hold? -- The world spins -- Outside our bodies, things -- Words, of course, but -- Silence. Does silence -- I put the beloved -- Salt on the roads melts -- When my gaze strays -- All I remember is the chorus -- Balanced on the edge -- Time to shut up -- Some days it's all a blur -- Blossoms scattered in the street -- I always supposed -- Words, how I loved you -- FROM The Second Book of the World, Which Is the Book of Relation -- Knowing life grinds us -- Intimacy not yet -- Who was born so shy -- Fate not just a pair of scissors -- Between -- that's where -- Some of us lucky -- The world so huge and dark -- Hold on! Let go! -- Oh to be deeply naked -- Easy to agree -- It's our bravest deed -- Virgil called them -- Not deepest grief -- All of it's tidal -- Nesting dolls. Inside the body -- Small Ode to the Beloved -- To become the tree, that's easy -- It happens periodically -- A few things you might want to know -- I'm not making this stuff up -- Tears and laughter -- Judging a poem -- When the beloved -- How is it I'm tired -- Has the moon been up there -- Sudden buildup -- The sun a hot hand -- Sun-drenched late- -- Pinch of time I'm -- Not to lead us away -- Watching this inchworm -- Autumn, and the woods -- Skitterbugs on the stream's surface -- Even as we speak -- Not a killing frost, only -- Humble dazzle -- Doesn't the world demand -- To praise what's there -- Autumn and the days -- Let me be the first -- How radiant and pale -- How the crocus pops up -- The dandelion, too -- Here I am, sitting on the porch -- FROM The Second Book of the Book, Which Is the Body of the Beloved Which Is the World -- Long night on the road -- Snow on the mountain -- Naked before the beloved -- Parched and wizened -- Such a shaking. If the elbows -- The poem didn't express -- No one I ever believed said -- Tired of the body? -- There are sorrows -- Who else can do it -- Calm down, calm down -- He's the answer -- Today only a single poem -- The Book said we were mortal; -- You can read the world -- When Sappho wrote -- Cool to the touch -- Memorize those lines you love -- You might think the things I say -- When you're afraid -- A thousand years ago -- Too many mysteries. Too many -- Wildness of the world -- It's not as if I didn't -- Did the beloved die? -- You lost the beloved -- When you're sad -- What or whom does the Book -- If we could have the world -- Making light of the beloved -- How to exhaust the inexhaustible? -- Refute the resurrection -- High Virginia summer -- The river has a single song -- So many singers -- Now the leaves are falling fiercely -- Lingering over it -- Nazim Hikmet begins a poem -- When the beloved appears -- No postmortems, please -- Sorrow and joy -- Listening to Bach's suites -- That single line: a rope -- Song on the jukebox -- Thirsty? -- I confess it -- I've been -- Do words outlast -- Who wants to talk -- Body of the beloved -- Spasm and sadness -- Acrobatic postures I enjoyed -- In the spring swamp -- Lucky poets us -- Being being nothing -- Squander it all! -- A song of resurrection played -- This is what was bequeathed us -- Index of Titles and First Lines. |
| Abstract |
"A collection of poems by Gregory Orr"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Abstract |
"For the past two decades, Gregory Orr has been writing toward 'the Book': an imagined tome containing every lyric poem and song ever written. Drawing from this rich tradition, [this book] is the culmination of that project and more -- it is a celebration of the transformative power of poetry, and of our extraordinary capacity to feel and to love" -- Back cover. |
| General note | "Some of the poems in this collection appeared previously in literary journals The American Poetry Review, Plume, and Smartish Pace and in Cooper Canyon Press volumes The Caged Owl, Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved, and How Beautiful the Beloved. Poems also appeared in River Inside the River: Poems, by Gregory Orr (copyright 2013 by Gregory Orr), and The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write: Poems, by Gregory Orr (copyright 2019 by Gregory Orr), used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company Inc." -- Initial unnumbered pages. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Genre/form | Poetry. |
| Genre/form | Poetry. |
| LCCN | 2021055238 |
| ISBN | 9781556596537 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 1556596537 (paperback) |
| ISBN | (epub) |
| Standard identifier# |
40031342422 |
