Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr is a poet who is known to be a master of the short, personal lyric. About Gregory, Mary Oliver wrote “He speaks now, in these many short poems, which in their entirety are really one long poem, of mysteries, of those things –emotions, situations, mind and heart states–which are beyond the definitive.” 

Gregory is the author of more than 10 collections of poetry. He has also published a beautiful book about lyric poetry called Poetry as Survival along with a stunning memoir, The Blessing. His latest book of poetry is Selected Books of the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2022).

In this conversation we talked about lyric poetry, anxiety, surviving trauma and the power of art to save a life.

In 2018 Gregory performed a poem-and-poems-set-to-music using his “beloved” poems, featuring the Parkington Sisters. We didn't get to discuss this during our conversation but you can check it out here here.

You can read more about Gregory on his website http://gregoryorr.net/. His wife, painter Tricia Orr's art can be found on her website, http://www.trishaorr.com/. 

Finally, you can listen to Gregory's conversation with Krista Tippett for the On Being podcast here.