Eric James Cruz (Poetry ‘ 20) on Gregory Orr’s Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved

Gregory Orr’s 2005 Concerning the Book That is the Body of the Beloved has been a godsend during a tough seven-year stretch that made it hard for me to feel human. Orr’s short lyrics insist that I stay connected to everything worth holding on to: empathy, perspective, hope, and the root of all these–love.

There is a word that stands out to me now: dimensionality. It lives as hope in these poems, a much-needed balm in the face of our current social climate. Most breathtaking is the invitation Orr leaves for the reader: to keep seeking in the face of loss. These poems affirm to me that I exist in both sorrow and joy. I live in the tension of being both unmoored and tethered to the world. We all experience elevating and diminishing moments; our job, this book seems to argue, is to embrace all of it: “a book about living / has to be filled with dying. / And a book of joy / will be full of sorrow.”