Several of Orr's poems have been published in Poetry Magazine.[6] In 2011, he published Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry,[7] of which Craig Morgan Teicher has written, "David Orr, the New York Times Book Review's poetry columnist as well as a poet, is a guide after my own heart as he seeks not just to initiate the uninitiated in his new book, Beautiful & Pointless, but also to hold a mirror up to the poetry world itself."[8]
Orr, David (March 11, 2007). "Annals of Poetry". The New York Times. This article was a response to Dana Goodyear's article in The New Yorker about Ruth Lilly's $200 million bequest to the Poetry Foundation.[10] The bequest, the Poetry Foundation's response to it, and the articles by Goodyear and Orr have been controversial.[11][12]
Orr, David (May 6, 2010). "On Poetry: Robert Hass's Empathy and Desire". The New York Times. Example of Orr's occasional column, On Poetry, from The New York Times Sunday Book Review.