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Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr Biography

Poet

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“Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I'm not alone in the world. I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I've experienced, or felt something like what I have felt. And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share.”

KnowsWorldGivingFeelsPersonsEnoughMovingTurnsStrongForceFeltGoneKnowingShareShapesConnectionsGive MeSurvivedNot AloneStrong Enough
Author:Gregory Orr
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“Language is a theme in the whole book, no? I mean it ends with the title poem about words are all we have. I guess midrash makes sense. How does it change in the course of the sequence? Well, God is into No and into Stasis/Nouns. Adam and Eve, in order to be in this world (and get this world going) must choose verbs. Which is to gain sex but also to choose death and all else that goes with change. To choose becoming over being.”

WorldWellsMeanDoeBookEndsWholeOrderCoursesLanguageSexThis WorldBecomingGainsMake SenseTitlesThemeAdamSequenceVerbsAdam And EveNounsStasis
Author:Gregory Orr
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“Speaking of people I had to exclude: Hank Williams. which is to say, songs are part of lyric poetry in my book, my thinking. In fact they are the urgent element of poetry in our time, they carry the most emotion for the most people in our culture. everyone LOVES poetry, because we all love (one form or another) of rock and roll (be it folk to emo to rap). It's all rock and roll and all lyric poetry.”

PeopleThinkingBookFactsFormSongCultureEmotionRocksElementsFolksRapOur TimePoetry IsRock And RollOne LoveUrgentLove PoetryEmoLyric PoetryHank Williams
Author:Gregory Orr
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“D.H. Lawrence says that myths are "inexhaustible" because they are symbols of heart mysteries. That is, they can't be exhausted - they somehow have embodied some central human mystery (love, loss, being a body in time, who knows which or what?) and thus can be retold infinitely and still be rich. That's part of your saying: it's old, but it's also new. Or: there's nothing "new" in the human heart, but it still matters lots.”

KnowsHumansHeartStillsMatterBodyLossRichMysteryMythSymbolsExhaustedHuman HeartNothing NewLove Loss
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“I want language to help us live in a world of wonder/terror/change. I want it to be about "becoming" rather than "being." I think that being and nouns are part of our hopeless dream that time will stop and we will not die. but it's not that way. So, why not celebrate verbs and the beloved's metamorphosis into other people or creatures or places - the same spirit but moving through things, not static.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayWantHelpingDreamMovingSpiritDiesLanguageWonderBecomingCreaturesTerrorCelebrateBelovedHopelessWhy NotStaticVerbsMetamorphosisNouns
Author:Gregory Orr
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“Rhyme as an echo not a closing off of sound. Love it. I don't know where the rhymes came from. Or the puns like "no/know" and so on. Just a way my mind start moving toward what seemed urgent to it. I'd like to claim complete rational intent for it all, but it wasn't that way. if you asked me about rhyme thirty years ago, I'd have said: not me, never. And now I done it.”

IfsKnowsWayYearsMindSaidDoneMovingSoundYears AgoClaimsRationalThirtyEchoesRhymeUrgentClosingThirty YearsPunClosing Off
Author:Gregory Orr
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“I am committed now to one thing: lyric sequences. I want the intensity of lyric, but the scope and arc of narrative. so, I think I'll just write sequences for the foreseeable (the Beloved sequence doesn't have a 'plot' so I can just keep adding poems to it, it's like a giant bag I can just put beloved lyrics into - I think there are about 300 of them i've published by now).”

ThinkingWantWritingI CanOne ThingCommittedNarrativeBelovedGiantsBagsPlotIntensityScopeSequenceArcs
Author:Gregory Orr
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