David Orr is the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review. His first book, Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry, was named one of the twenty best books of 2011 by the Chicago Tribune, and he received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle. Orr lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and daughter, and teaches at Cornell University.