Customer Reviews

Orpheus & Eurydice

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Orr is currently my poetry instructor, and he read a few of these poems in my Classical Literature classes here at UVA. I might add that his hushed, musical way of reading the poems makes these lyrics even more transcendent than they already are. I have to say that this book is one of the most honed, compelling and moving collection of lyrics written on the violent, transforming nature of romantic love I have ever read. Yes, the Orpheus myth has been attempted by many of our major poets, but Orr approaches the story with such a clear-eyed and fresh approach, telling us in his quiet, rhythmic meditations the sharpness of heartbreak, the fragility of earthly love, the madness of O's lonely wandering. The Orpheus and Eurydice story becomes a metaphor for intense, unhinged love that transforms lovers into gods and goddesses, the kind of love that sends the madman-lover careening through both heaven and hell. Orr is a master of the lyric, and after reading this book I could not believe I was so lucky to be his student.

This slim poetry sequence is one of deceptive simplicity, and gains in subtle but intense power as it progresses. A retelling of the tragic tale of Orpheus & Eurydice, it examines love & desire & grief with perception & precision. It's the precision of both a scalpel & a delicate etching tool, revealing the depths & complexity of the human heart with a single image, a single detail. Everything is scraped down to the bare polished bone, and made achingly beautiful with the adornment of a flower, a glimpse of sunlight, the endless mirror of still water.

Even if you're familiar with previous retellings of this tale, you'll still find something new & revelatory in these pages -- most highly recommended!

What I want with each retelling, whether it be a nursery rhyme or one of my grandfather's war stories, is something fresh and different. I love, of course, rereading my favorite books and poems, but with a tale like that of Orpheus and Eurydice, I'm simply not looking for the same story. I want a new perspective, not only a retelling, but a reshaping of the myth. Orr puts his own spirit into what many of you may know of as the tragic lives of the two lovers. He writes, however, from a place unlike most before him. With the same joy as seeing a film remade with exceptional talent, I read Orr's work with excitement and pleasure. It's not the same story. It's much more.

I never read much of Orr before this book. I knew he was on the horizon, but I was caught up with dozens of what I thought were more established, more experimental, or (blush) more hip writers. Just recently I was in the bookstore and picked this up without even reading a single poem. When I opened it up that afternoon, I was floored. It might be the best book of poems I've read in several years. The poems use the figures of Orpheus and Eurydice, but the words are about passion, love, and loss. By using the classical figures, Orr opens up the possibility to explore emotions that literary poets sometimes bypass. If you haven't read Orr, this is a knock out. If you're a poetry reader and just want to read a great book, start right here.

I was very disapointed in this book. However, that disapointment is not necessarily the author's fault, but my own. I wanted to learn something new about Orpheus & Eurydice. Instead, I got a short, padded, overpriced book of average poetry, with no background information or any sort of explanation of the subject. Those who are looking for romantic poetry may get something out of this, but my copy went directly to the recycle box.