Reviews for The Caged Owl: New & Selected Poems

The average rating for The Caged Owl: New & Selected Poems based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-04 00:00:00 Steve Moidel This collection encompasses new poems plus selections from his earlier books. The wonderful often surrealistic poems from "Burning the Empty Nests", "Gathering the Bones Together" and "The Red House" contain such unforgettable images as "Water: a glass snake asleep in the pipes". The title poem of "Gathering the Bones Together" is one I frequently taught and found adolescents especially responsive to it, even those who claimed to "dislike" poetry. Sadly, the more recent poems have lost that luster. Orr has concentrated on the Villanelle form which can be constrictive, and the only one I thought fully realized was "What I'm Saying." That said, no one can dispute his talent in the poems of his early and middle period.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-22 00:00:00 Juan Franco I actually got to hear Mr. Orr read from this book of poetry in a creative writing class. This copy is signed. His poems are terse, while remaining accessible, even stirring. He typically writes in two-to-three word lines, with many poems being a page long or less, and even though there are deeper meanings to the poems, he is like Carl Dennis: easy to understand on some level on the first read.