Selected Books of the Beloved

Gregory Orr

Forthcoming August 2022

For more than a decade, Gregory Orr has been writing toward “the Book:” an imagined tome containing every poem and song ever written. Drawing from a rich tradition of lyric  poetry, Collected Beloved 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.

Paperback: $18.00 list price

IndieBound Amazon
Receive this book as a gift when you donate.

ISBN: 9781556596537

Format: Paperback

The motions so cautious,
Gestures almost not worth
Making.
                                            Do you think
The beloved rewards this?
Have you never heard
Of extravagance?
                                                               Love
Parceled out bit by bit
So it will last longer.

Look at the beloved—
Can’t you see her laughing?

*

“Beloved”—word
That is
A world;
World inside a word.

What if it hadn’t been?
What if it hadn’t been heard?

About the Author

Gregory Orr is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write (Norton 2019). Milkweed Editions recently reissued his memoir, The Blessing (2019). His prose books include A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry (Norton, 2018) and Poetry as Survival (University of Georgia Press, 2002). At the Dodge Poetry Festival in 2018, he premiered a fifty-minute song/poem cycle, “The Beloved,” with the Parkington Sisters. He’s been interviewed by Krista Tippett for …

Read more