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Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2015)Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away—loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it—that tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard. That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all—death, sorrow, loss—is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 16, 2015
538 people are currently reading
14194 people want to read
About the author
Ross Gay
33 books1,449 followersRoss Gay is an American poet, essayist, and professor who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his 2014 book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.
His honors include being a Cave Canem Workshop fellow and a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Tuition Scholar, and he received a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.
He is an associate professor of poetry at Indiana University and teaches in Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in poetry. He also serves on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard.
His honors include being a Cave Canem Workshop fellow and a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Tuition Scholar, and he received a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.
He is an associate professor of poetry at Indiana University and teaches in Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in poetry. He also serves on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 883 reviews
May 8, 2022
Ross Gay is so good that everyone inspired by him (and there are plenty) are also good.
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June 17, 2024
I have nothing but unabashed gratitude for Ross Gay and these poems.
The third collection from Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is filled with odes and gorgeous verse to catalog a lifetime of gratitude set against the darkness that life can bring if only to illuminate our way forward through it all with hope in our hearts. And it is a joy to behold. These are poems that will whip up your heartstrings like a conductor leading a symphony celebrating the whole spectrum of emotions and Gay writes like ‘he knew he could make you happy / just by being a little silly / and sweet.’ The quote comes from his poem Burial, which is emblematic of the entire collection where we can find a sweetness and solace even in the darker moments such as this one where Gay is spreading the ashes of his recently deceased father upon the roots of new trees. It speaks to how, out of loss and sadness, we can learn and grow a better future. Not unlike his book of essays, The Book of Delights, these poems acknowledge grief and address the toxicity and harm of a harsh world, but also give space to find the beauty amidst it all and remind us to sit down with this beauty and show it our gratitude.
‘what do you think
this singing and shuddering is,
what this screaming and reaching and dancing
and crying is, other than loving
what every second goes away?
Goodbye, I mean to say.
And thank you. Every day.’
In an interview with LA Review of Books Ross Gay said that ‘one of the pleasures of writing poems for me is that it’s this real sort of intimate communication.’ This reverberates through the entire collection, both his pleasure in crafting the poetry but also the sense of intimate communication between reader and poet. He’s a poet you can’t help but let your guard down and be flooded by his infectious gratitude and optimism. Originally titled ‘Ode to the Mundane World’ to emphasize the frequent use of odes in the collection—a style he says he is indebted to Pablo Neruda for inspiring—we see his ability to capture the mundane and quotidian and transform it into something magical and grand. It takes the small moments and makes them monumental in their meaning. Take the poem To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian (a longer poem you can read HERE) which–surprise!--features two strangers both eating from a fig tree. It ends like this:
His poems—often playful, often sad, always moving—crackle with a sense of poignancy even when steeped in the everyday. In his poetry even we feel ourselves larger and more important even in our minor places in the scope of existence, his poetry making us not unlike the man in Ode to the Flute:
‘A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it
and make of it
at least
a small final song’
Not that all is joy here, and the beauty comes equally paced with brutality. The poems address racism, homophobia and violence, such as in Spoon which is to Don Belton, a queer, Black author and teacher who was murdered in 2009. But Ross reminds us that ‘loss makes all things / beautiful grow.’ And that if we remember gratitude, we can bear it all together.
‘I swore when I got into this poem I would convert
this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics’
Ross Gay is a lovely poet and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a lovely collection. It is a reminder to be thankful, to look for the joy, and to let it fill us. Gay even tells us in the titular poem (read it HERE) that he is thankful for us, the reader, and what could be better than that.
‘I can’t stop
my gratitude, which includes, dear reader,
you, for staying here with me,
for moving your lips just so as I speak.
Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it.’
The third collection from Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is filled with odes and gorgeous verse to catalog a lifetime of gratitude set against the darkness that life can bring if only to illuminate our way forward through it all with hope in our hearts. And it is a joy to behold. These are poems that will whip up your heartstrings like a conductor leading a symphony celebrating the whole spectrum of emotions and Gay writes like ‘he knew he could make you happy / just by being a little silly / and sweet.’ The quote comes from his poem Burial, which is emblematic of the entire collection where we can find a sweetness and solace even in the darker moments such as this one where Gay is spreading the ashes of his recently deceased father upon the roots of new trees. It speaks to how, out of loss and sadness, we can learn and grow a better future. Not unlike his book of essays, The Book of Delights, these poems acknowledge grief and address the toxicity and harm of a harsh world, but also give space to find the beauty amidst it all and remind us to sit down with this beauty and show it our gratitude.
‘what do you think
this singing and shuddering is,
what this screaming and reaching and dancing
and crying is, other than loving
what every second goes away?
Goodbye, I mean to say.
And thank you. Every day.’
In an interview with LA Review of Books Ross Gay said that ‘one of the pleasures of writing poems for me is that it’s this real sort of intimate communication.’ This reverberates through the entire collection, both his pleasure in crafting the poetry but also the sense of intimate communication between reader and poet. He’s a poet you can’t help but let your guard down and be flooded by his infectious gratitude and optimism. Originally titled ‘Ode to the Mundane World’ to emphasize the frequent use of odes in the collection—a style he says he is indebted to Pablo Neruda for inspiring—we see his ability to capture the mundane and quotidian and transform it into something magical and grand. It takes the small moments and makes them monumental in their meaning. Take the poem To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian (a longer poem you can read HERE) which–surprise!--features two strangers both eating from a fig tree. It ends like this:
‘gleeful eating out of each other’s hands
on Christian St.
in Philadelphia a city like most
which has murdered its own
people
this is true
we are feeding each other
from a tree
at the corner of Christian and 9th
strangers maybe
never again.’
His poems—often playful, often sad, always moving—crackle with a sense of poignancy even when steeped in the everyday. In his poetry even we feel ourselves larger and more important even in our minor places in the scope of existence, his poetry making us not unlike the man in Ode to the Flute:
‘A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it
and make of it
at least
a small final song’
Not that all is joy here, and the beauty comes equally paced with brutality. The poems address racism, homophobia and violence, such as in Spoon which is to Don Belton, a queer, Black author and teacher who was murdered in 2009. But Ross reminds us that ‘loss makes all things / beautiful grow.’ And that if we remember gratitude, we can bear it all together.
‘I swore when I got into this poem I would convert
this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics’
Ross Gay is a lovely poet and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a lovely collection. It is a reminder to be thankful, to look for the joy, and to let it fill us. Gay even tells us in the titular poem (read it HERE) that he is thankful for us, the reader, and what could be better than that.
‘I can’t stop
my gratitude, which includes, dear reader,
you, for staying here with me,
for moving your lips just so as I speak.
Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it.’
February 7, 2017
Probably one of the most noteworthy things about Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is that most of these poems are several pages long, and they often start out being about one thing and then pivot somewhere in the middle, revealing they're actually about something else instead of, or in addition to, what you'd thought they were about. You could be reading along happily, smiling at Gay's loving tribute to his next-door neighbor, only to unexpectedly find yourself sobbing. Uh, not that that happened to me or anything. (Sure it didn't.) But what you mostly have here are a lot of poems about paying attention to, and embracing, the world around you, particularly the natural world. Gay's enthusiasm is contagious, his writing is beautiful and often funny, and his joy and delight come through loud and clear, perhaps nowhere more so than in the title poem, where Gay tries, but not very hard, to keep a lid on the "excitability" that informs his entire life.
...Soon it will be over,
which is precisely what the child in my dream said,
holding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky
hurtling our way like so many buffalo,
who said it's much worse than we think,
and sooner; to whom I said,
no duh child in my dreams, what do you think
this singing and shuddering is,
what this screaming and reaching and dancing
and crying is, other than loving
what every second goes away?
Goodbye, I mean to say.
And thank you. Every day.
...Soon it will be over,
which is precisely what the child in my dream said,
holding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky
hurtling our way like so many buffalo,
who said it's much worse than we think,
and sooner; to whom I said,
no duh child in my dreams, what do you think
this singing and shuddering is,
what this screaming and reaching and dancing
and crying is, other than loving
what every second goes away?
Goodbye, I mean to say.
And thank you. Every day.
November 20, 2015
I don't know when I last read a set of poems that managed to convey such intense joy. I love Gerard Manley Hopkins, and although the comparison is imperfect, I swear I still felt an echo of "The Windhover" in certain lines and stanzas, especially the title poem, which I love intensely. I think it was Roger Rosenblatt who said art requires affection for life, and Ross Gay's affection is infectious here. His poems are like good music, good food, good weather, and good friends coming together at the same time, but with a necessary awareness of mistakes and sadness and death and disappointment so that the goodness never, ever seems false.
Read
May 7, 2016I have a little ritual I go through before I read a book of poetry. First, I count the number of poems in the collection. Here it is a nimble 24. Doesn't seem enough to flesh out a full book of poetry (this is not a chapbook), but once you enter, the mystery is solved. Gay mostly writes long, strung-out single-stanza poems, often with lines that consist of 2-6 words.
But back to the ritual. Acknowledgments. Ah, yes. The aspiring poet in me. I want to know where these have seen the light of published day. Often, it's a depressing exercise as I see a litany of top-drawer publications--the stuff of my rejections file. But in Gay's case, it's a motley-- and to me, somewhat inspiring-- set of obscure and maybe doable journals: Solstice, Gabby, Exit 7, Nashville Review, Bombay Gin, Oversound, etc.
As for the poems, I found myself engaged at the outset but lost some interest as the book went on. Perhaps I grew used to the canter of this one-trick pony style? Or was it that the book was top-heavy, with its best punches thrown in the early going? In any event, the metaphors and similes seemed to lose a little airlift as the pages blew by.
Here's another Ken habit. I write down cool phrases from poems as I read. I'm an apprentice with a lot to learn, and any published poet I am proud to call my master-of-the-moment. Here are a few I jotted down:
"pulling me down into the oldest countries of my body"
"mostly he disappeared into the minor yawns of the earth"
"purple skin like cathedrals of glass"
"filling the sky in my chest"
"cat's shimmy through the grin of the fence"
"his tongue drowsed slack as a creek"
"In that gaudy, cement-mixer Leavettown accent that sends lemurs scaling my ribcage to see"
And, to give you a sense for Ross's style, here's
To My Best Friend's Big Sister:
One never knows
does one
how one comes to be
standing
most ways to naked
in front of one’s pal’s
big sister who has, simply
by telling me to,
gotten me to shed
all but the scantest
flap of fabric
and twirl before her
like a rotisserie
chicken as she
observes
and offers thoughtful critique
of my just
pubescent physique
which is not
a thing
to behold
what with my damp trunks
clinging to
my damp crotch
and proportion and grace
are words the definition
of which I don’t yet know
nor did I ask the
the mini-skirted scientist
sitting open-legged
and now shoeless
on my mom’s couch
though it may have been
this morning
while chucking papers
I heard through the Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock
pulsing my walkman
a mourning
dove struggling
snared in the downspout’s
mouth and without
lowering the volume
or missing a verse
I crinkled the rusted aluminum
trap enough that with
a little wriggle
it was free
and did not
at once
wobble to some
powerline but sat on my hand
and looked at me
for at least
one verse of “It Takes Two”
sort of bobbing
its head
and cooing once or twice
before flopping off
but that seems very long ago
now
as I pirouette
my hairless and shivering
warble of acne and pudge
burning a hole
in the rug as big sis tosses off
Greek and Latin words
like pectorals and
gluteus maximus
standing to show me
what she means
with her hands on my love
handles and now
I can see myself
trying to add some gaudy flourish
to this memory
to make of it
a fantasy
which is why I linger
hoping to mis-recall
the child
me
make of me
someone I wasn’t
make of this
experience the beginning
of a new life
gilded doors
kicked open blaring
trombones a full
beard Isaac Hayes singing in the background
and me thundering forth
on the wild steed
of emergent manhood
but I think this child was not
that child
obscuring, as he was, his breasts
by tucking his hands
into his armpits
and having never even made love
to himself
yet was not
really a candidate for much
besides the chill
of a minor shame
that he would forget for 15 years
one of what would prove
to be many
such shames
stitched together like a quilt
with all its just legible
patterning which could be a thing
heavy and warm
to be buried in
or instead might be held up
to the light
where we see the threads
barely holding
so human and frail
so beautiful and sad and small
from this remove.
But back to the ritual. Acknowledgments. Ah, yes. The aspiring poet in me. I want to know where these have seen the light of published day. Often, it's a depressing exercise as I see a litany of top-drawer publications--the stuff of my rejections file. But in Gay's case, it's a motley-- and to me, somewhat inspiring-- set of obscure and maybe doable journals: Solstice, Gabby, Exit 7, Nashville Review, Bombay Gin, Oversound, etc.
As for the poems, I found myself engaged at the outset but lost some interest as the book went on. Perhaps I grew used to the canter of this one-trick pony style? Or was it that the book was top-heavy, with its best punches thrown in the early going? In any event, the metaphors and similes seemed to lose a little airlift as the pages blew by.
Here's another Ken habit. I write down cool phrases from poems as I read. I'm an apprentice with a lot to learn, and any published poet I am proud to call my master-of-the-moment. Here are a few I jotted down:
"pulling me down into the oldest countries of my body"
"mostly he disappeared into the minor yawns of the earth"
"purple skin like cathedrals of glass"
"filling the sky in my chest"
"cat's shimmy through the grin of the fence"
"his tongue drowsed slack as a creek"
"In that gaudy, cement-mixer Leavettown accent that sends lemurs scaling my ribcage to see"
And, to give you a sense for Ross's style, here's
To My Best Friend's Big Sister:
One never knows
does one
how one comes to be
standing
most ways to naked
in front of one’s pal’s
big sister who has, simply
by telling me to,
gotten me to shed
all but the scantest
flap of fabric
and twirl before her
like a rotisserie
chicken as she
observes
and offers thoughtful critique
of my just
pubescent physique
which is not
a thing
to behold
what with my damp trunks
clinging to
my damp crotch
and proportion and grace
are words the definition
of which I don’t yet know
nor did I ask the
the mini-skirted scientist
sitting open-legged
and now shoeless
on my mom’s couch
though it may have been
this morning
while chucking papers
I heard through the Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock
pulsing my walkman
a mourning
dove struggling
snared in the downspout’s
mouth and without
lowering the volume
or missing a verse
I crinkled the rusted aluminum
trap enough that with
a little wriggle
it was free
and did not
at once
wobble to some
powerline but sat on my hand
and looked at me
for at least
one verse of “It Takes Two”
sort of bobbing
its head
and cooing once or twice
before flopping off
but that seems very long ago
now
as I pirouette
my hairless and shivering
warble of acne and pudge
burning a hole
in the rug as big sis tosses off
Greek and Latin words
like pectorals and
gluteus maximus
standing to show me
what she means
with her hands on my love
handles and now
I can see myself
trying to add some gaudy flourish
to this memory
to make of it
a fantasy
which is why I linger
hoping to mis-recall
the child
me
make of me
someone I wasn’t
make of this
experience the beginning
of a new life
gilded doors
kicked open blaring
trombones a full
beard Isaac Hayes singing in the background
and me thundering forth
on the wild steed
of emergent manhood
but I think this child was not
that child
obscuring, as he was, his breasts
by tucking his hands
into his armpits
and having never even made love
to himself
yet was not
really a candidate for much
besides the chill
of a minor shame
that he would forget for 15 years
one of what would prove
to be many
such shames
stitched together like a quilt
with all its just legible
patterning which could be a thing
heavy and warm
to be buried in
or instead might be held up
to the light
where we see the threads
barely holding
so human and frail
so beautiful and sad and small
from this remove.
February 23, 2018
This is a warm-hearted volume of poems that constantly tricked me into tears. The reality of life as loss is very present here, inextricably connected to the joy of life's abundance. The author's experience of gardening inform the poems which are filled with images of the garden, the life and inevitable deaths.
There are so many lines that I treasured. To quote just a few:
and yes, it is spring, if you can't tell
from the words my mind makes
of the world
and:
I swore when I got into this poem I would convert
this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics
I can sometimes make with these scribbled artifacts
of our desolation
and, so poignantly and so much what this collection seems about:
...what do you think
this singing and shuddering is
....
...other than loving
what every second goes away?
I can't wait to go find the rest of what Gay has written. And, of course, to reread this collection.
There are so many lines that I treasured. To quote just a few:
and yes, it is spring, if you can't tell
from the words my mind makes
of the world
and:
I swore when I got into this poem I would convert
this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics
I can sometimes make with these scribbled artifacts
of our desolation
and, so poignantly and so much what this collection seems about:
...what do you think
this singing and shuddering is
....
...other than loving
what every second goes away?
I can't wait to go find the rest of what Gay has written. And, of course, to reread this collection.
February 27, 2023
Many meandering poems that take you on a journey. A lot of nature. A lot of death. A log of gratitude. I liked this collection but never felt a gut punch in reading any of them.
April 2, 2025
This was highly not what I expected. The poems were just....strange and extremely disjointed. Poetry is something that affects everyone different, so I'm happy for the people who felt impacted by this, but it just made zero connection with me, sadly.
September 17, 2015
This book of poems was just longlisted for the National Book Award, so I was happy to find a copy in my library.
Ross's poems are very steeped in nature, particularly a farm/orchard childhood (based on what he says). A lot on childhood, relationships, and one very touching tribute to a friend and colleague at Indiana University who was stabbed to death in 2009. (That poem is called "Spoon.")
My favorite little bit comes at the end of the poem "Feet," which starts with his thoughts on his ugly feet, and ends with:
Ross's poems are very steeped in nature, particularly a farm/orchard childhood (based on what he says). A lot on childhood, relationships, and one very touching tribute to a friend and colleague at Indiana University who was stabbed to death in 2009. (That poem is called "Spoon.")
My favorite little bit comes at the end of the poem "Feet," which starts with his thoughts on his ugly feet, and ends with:
"here, where we started, in the factoryAs with Feet, these poems have great rhythm to them, and range from 1 page to 20.
where loss makes all things
beautiful grow."
November 3, 2017
Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is an uplifting and therapeutic poetry collection. He embraces the small things that make life wonderful as he reminisces his past and childhood.
His collection is imbued with beautiful imagery about the natural world; it is compellingly lyrical:
There is, in my yard, a huge and beautiful peach tree.
I planted the thing as a three-foot whip,
a spindly prayer with a tangle of roots so delicate,
so wild, I took ten minutes to feather them apart.
The self-aware narration is striking—
I can see myself
trying to add some gaudy flourish
to this memory
to make of it
a fantasy
which is why I linger
hoping to mis-recall
the child
In addition to characterizing the speaker, it adds a humorous element especially for other poets and writers who are reading his work.
He also establishes intimacy by addressing the reader. Suddenly it feels not only relatable but personal.
I can’t stop my gratitude,
which includes, dear reader,
you, for staying here with me,
for moving your lips just so as I speak.
Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it.
By Claudia Estrada
His collection is imbued with beautiful imagery about the natural world; it is compellingly lyrical:
There is, in my yard, a huge and beautiful peach tree.
I planted the thing as a three-foot whip,
a spindly prayer with a tangle of roots so delicate,
so wild, I took ten minutes to feather them apart.
The self-aware narration is striking—
I can see myself
trying to add some gaudy flourish
to this memory
to make of it
a fantasy
which is why I linger
hoping to mis-recall
the child
In addition to characterizing the speaker, it adds a humorous element especially for other poets and writers who are reading his work.
He also establishes intimacy by addressing the reader. Suddenly it feels not only relatable but personal.
I can’t stop my gratitude,
which includes, dear reader,
you, for staying here with me,
for moving your lips just so as I speak.
Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it.
By Claudia Estrada
July 10, 2016
I had quite high expectations for this, but I'm afraid I'm a bit disappointed. Though I found some of the sentences beautiful, especially those depicting nature, I couldn't find a personal connection. I was initially going to give this three stars, but after having thought about it for a few days, very little from this seems to have stuck with me. I do see the talent, but I just didn't find myself captured.
March 27, 2017
fuck. yes.
February 5, 2018
Happy poems. Especially love Ross Gay writing about gardening and animals and plants. A perfect mid-winter pick-me-up.
June 12, 2024
It is with the utmost pride and sincerity that I present this recording as a living testament and recollection of history in the making during our generation
July 18, 2022
I was reading this on a train called the Circumvesuvius because it’s route went around Mount Vesuvius, this absolutely gorgianna poetry (faves were the poems about the fig tree, his neighbor Don, and burial) paired so perfectly with the sights of the volcano, the lemon orchards, and the scratchy violinist playing for tips on the train, just such a perfect memory!!
October 17, 2016
just like an overflowing bucket of human delight/sadness/the spectrum between. i am down with ross gay.
November 27, 2020
that was so sweet just. no words heart full
April 4, 2018
I just reread. And found another poem I love - It describes a goldfinch eating sunflower seeds. The scene is a metaphor for love - poem is called (I think) Wedding Poem.
And everything I said before still applies:
I love, love, love this book. It truly lives up to the title.
I plan to quote from several of the poems. Since there's no plot to be revealed, I don't think it's technically a spoiler, but for those who don't want to read excerpts, be advised.
I first heard of this author when I happened to catch a radio interview with him on my car radio. WFIU, Bloomington. He teaches poetry at Indiana University. He is also on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard. The interviewer asked about the connection between his work with orchards and teaching poetry.
Ode to the flute
A man sings/by opening his/mouth a man/sings by opening/ his lungs by/turning himself into air/a flute can/be made of a man/nothing is explained/a flute lays/on its side/and prays a wind/might enter it/and make of it/at least/ a small final song
Nature fills his poetry - fruit, flowers, trees, insects, shit, puke, sex and death. Exuberantly short lines roll down the page. Even his longer poems keep pulling me along, and providing, from time to time, marvelous nuggets of insight.
In the poem Patience, he talks about his springtime garden and some bees. The flowers are compared to lips: "the way this bee/before me after whispering in my ear dips her head/into those dainty lips not exactly like on entering a chapel/ and friends/as if that wasn't enough/blooms forth with her forehead dusted pink/like she had been licked/and so blessed/by the kind of God/to whom this poem is prayer.
Feet is about his ugly feet and a girl who told him he had pretty feet. ""the poet says/I wish I could tell you,/truly, of the little factory/in my head: the smokestacks/chuffing, the dandelions/and purslane and willows of sweet clover/prying through the blacktop/. . ./in the factory/where loss makes all things beautiful grow.
The poem Spoon is in memory of his gay black friend who was murdered. The poem spells out just how unwelcome a black man can feel in this part of the Midwest. The poet is a black man himself.
The title poem is a long one. Those who know my taste realize that I generally prefer poems that will fit on a single page - or maybe two. This one goes on for twelve pages. I'll quote a part near the end. "I want so badly to rub the sponge of gratitude/over every last thing."
He can even find joy in the simple act of putting on (or taking off) his clothes. He called the poem "Ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt".
In the poem Burial, he tells about planting a tree, and deciding to add some of his father's ashes (cremains, the funeral people call them) in the soil. "watering it in all with one hand/ while holding the tree/ with the other straight as the flag/to the nation of simple joy/of which my father is now a naturalized citizen" and concluding with the fruit of that tree. "almost dancing now in the plum,/in the tree, and the way he did as a person,/bent over and biting his lip/and chucking the one hip out/then the other with his elbows cocked/and fists loosely made/and eyes closed and mouth made trumpet/when he knew he could make you happy/just by being a little silly/and sweet.
Enduring the estrangement
from my mother's sadness, which was
to me, unbearable, until,
it felt to me
not like what I thought it felt like
to her, and so felt inside myself - like death,
like dying, which I would almost
have rather done, though adding to her sadness
would rather die than do -
but, by sitting still, liked what, in fact, it was-
a form of gratitude
which when last it came
drifted like a meadow lit by torches
of cardinal flower, one of whose crimson blooms,
when a hummingbird hovered nearby,
I slipped into my mouth
thereby coaxing the bird
to scrawl on my tongue
its heart's frenzy, its fleet
nectar-questing song,
with whom, with you, dear mother,
I now sing along.
A bit of advice addressed to his unheeding students in poetry class, he writes in the poem To the mistake: "the mistake/I say is a gift/don't be afraid/see what it teaches you/about what the poem/can be"
Another long poem, The opening, is an extended meditation on memory, family, philosophy. It begins with a kind of out-of-body experience. "You might wonder what I am doing here/in the passenger's seat of this teal Mitsubishi//with the hood secured by six or seven strips of duct tape,/sitting next to Myself, who sits in the drivers seat,//. . . //you wonder rightly what it is I am saying/quietly in the ear of Myself, and what I am pointing at//with one hand while the other rests on Myself's shoulder,/tenderly if not a bit tentatively, for Myself//is still a very big man, and quick, and trying hard/not to take anyone with him over the ledge on which he stands,//. . .//given the long prayer he found himself giving/the chickadee that met its death on his windshield//"
Later he remembers birds trapped in an attic and they become metaphors, "And the birds I'm talking about are not birds at all/but common sorrow made murderous simply by nailing//the shingles tight, and caulking with the tar always boiling out back/all possible cracks" and later, "the roaring in his head, which was nothing//more, it turns out, than the sounds of not weeping, the sounds/of sadness turned back. Nothing savage, nothing cruel or vicious,//not a bird in sight - just sadness. Which is to say/in other words, just being alive."
I think the poem I liked best, however, was the one called Weeping. It tells about a day spent by his niece Mikayla with her little friend Emma, "who left without saying goodbye." In the course of the poem, we learn that Emma is able to fly and land on Mikayla's finger. Emma' wings are brown and gold. Later in the poem we also learn that Emma has multiple legs. A butterfly. Emma spend the day around Mikayla, but the little girl is sad, is weeping when Emma leaves without saying goodbye. The sadness is there in the poem, but I was amazed by the miracle that Emma would stay nearby for an entire day.
And everything I said before still applies:
I love, love, love this book. It truly lives up to the title.
I plan to quote from several of the poems. Since there's no plot to be revealed, I don't think it's technically a spoiler, but for those who don't want to read excerpts, be advised.
I first heard of this author when I happened to catch a radio interview with him on my car radio. WFIU, Bloomington. He teaches poetry at Indiana University. He is also on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard. The interviewer asked about the connection between his work with orchards and teaching poetry.
Ode to the flute
A man sings/by opening his/mouth a man/sings by opening/ his lungs by/turning himself into air/a flute can/be made of a man/nothing is explained/a flute lays/on its side/and prays a wind/might enter it/and make of it/at least/ a small final song
Nature fills his poetry - fruit, flowers, trees, insects, shit, puke, sex and death. Exuberantly short lines roll down the page. Even his longer poems keep pulling me along, and providing, from time to time, marvelous nuggets of insight.
In the poem Patience, he talks about his springtime garden and some bees. The flowers are compared to lips: "the way this bee/before me after whispering in my ear dips her head/into those dainty lips not exactly like on entering a chapel/ and friends/as if that wasn't enough/blooms forth with her forehead dusted pink/like she had been licked/and so blessed/by the kind of God/to whom this poem is prayer.
Feet is about his ugly feet and a girl who told him he had pretty feet. ""the poet says/I wish I could tell you,/truly, of the little factory/in my head: the smokestacks/chuffing, the dandelions/and purslane and willows of sweet clover/prying through the blacktop/. . ./in the factory/where loss makes all things beautiful grow.
The poem Spoon is in memory of his gay black friend who was murdered. The poem spells out just how unwelcome a black man can feel in this part of the Midwest. The poet is a black man himself.
The title poem is a long one. Those who know my taste realize that I generally prefer poems that will fit on a single page - or maybe two. This one goes on for twelve pages. I'll quote a part near the end. "I want so badly to rub the sponge of gratitude/over every last thing."
He can even find joy in the simple act of putting on (or taking off) his clothes. He called the poem "Ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt".
In the poem Burial, he tells about planting a tree, and deciding to add some of his father's ashes (cremains, the funeral people call them) in the soil. "watering it in all with one hand/ while holding the tree/ with the other straight as the flag/to the nation of simple joy/of which my father is now a naturalized citizen" and concluding with the fruit of that tree. "almost dancing now in the plum,/in the tree, and the way he did as a person,/bent over and biting his lip/and chucking the one hip out/then the other with his elbows cocked/and fists loosely made/and eyes closed and mouth made trumpet/when he knew he could make you happy/just by being a little silly/and sweet.
Enduring the estrangement
from my mother's sadness, which was
to me, unbearable, until,
it felt to me
not like what I thought it felt like
to her, and so felt inside myself - like death,
like dying, which I would almost
have rather done, though adding to her sadness
would rather die than do -
but, by sitting still, liked what, in fact, it was-
a form of gratitude
which when last it came
drifted like a meadow lit by torches
of cardinal flower, one of whose crimson blooms,
when a hummingbird hovered nearby,
I slipped into my mouth
thereby coaxing the bird
to scrawl on my tongue
its heart's frenzy, its fleet
nectar-questing song,
with whom, with you, dear mother,
I now sing along.
A bit of advice addressed to his unheeding students in poetry class, he writes in the poem To the mistake: "the mistake/I say is a gift/don't be afraid/see what it teaches you/about what the poem/can be"
Another long poem, The opening, is an extended meditation on memory, family, philosophy. It begins with a kind of out-of-body experience. "You might wonder what I am doing here/in the passenger's seat of this teal Mitsubishi//with the hood secured by six or seven strips of duct tape,/sitting next to Myself, who sits in the drivers seat,//. . . //you wonder rightly what it is I am saying/quietly in the ear of Myself, and what I am pointing at//with one hand while the other rests on Myself's shoulder,/tenderly if not a bit tentatively, for Myself//is still a very big man, and quick, and trying hard/not to take anyone with him over the ledge on which he stands,//. . .//given the long prayer he found himself giving/the chickadee that met its death on his windshield//"
Later he remembers birds trapped in an attic and they become metaphors, "And the birds I'm talking about are not birds at all/but common sorrow made murderous simply by nailing//the shingles tight, and caulking with the tar always boiling out back/all possible cracks" and later, "the roaring in his head, which was nothing//more, it turns out, than the sounds of not weeping, the sounds/of sadness turned back. Nothing savage, nothing cruel or vicious,//not a bird in sight - just sadness. Which is to say/in other words, just being alive."
I think the poem I liked best, however, was the one called Weeping. It tells about a day spent by his niece Mikayla with her little friend Emma, "who left without saying goodbye." In the course of the poem, we learn that Emma is able to fly and land on Mikayla's finger. Emma' wings are brown and gold. Later in the poem we also learn that Emma has multiple legs. A butterfly. Emma spend the day around Mikayla, but the little girl is sad, is weeping when Emma leaves without saying goodbye. The sadness is there in the poem, but I was amazed by the miracle that Emma would stay nearby for an entire day.
June 18, 2016
I am trying, I think, to forgive myself
for something I don't know what.
But what I do know is that I love the moment when the poet says
"I am trying to do this
or I am trying to do that."
Sometimes it's a horseshit trick. But sometimes
it's a way by which the poet says
I wish I could tell you,
truly, of the little factory
in my head: the smokestacks
chuffing, the dandelions
and purslane and willows of sweet clover
prying through the blacktop.
I wish I could tell you
how inside is the steady mumble and clank of machines.
But mostly I wish I could tell you of the footsteps I hear,
more than I can ever count,
all of whose gaits I can discern by listening, closely.
Which promptly disappear
after being lodged again,
here, where we started, in the factory
where loss makes all things
beautiful glow.
Aphoteosis! Eternal Spring!
Ross Gay's surname seems to have been fitted to suit his expression of life exultant, his melifluous poetry, written in blank verse. It is fertile; it is the poetry of the earth and of the moving spirit which encompasses the radiance and sound of laughter that comes with the breeze, or with the leaf's autumnal descent. A poetry which is hope exponentiated can only bring one who reads it hope: rosy spectacles in which to feel the magic of movement and the beauty of ressurection in the magic of all things. Especially things lost.
This is what I miss most in the vast majority of portuguese poets: the unrestrained joy of feeling.
I can't help but rejoice at the thought that there is great poetry being written and recognized as an expression of human excellence.
for something I don't know what.
But what I do know is that I love the moment when the poet says
"I am trying to do this
or I am trying to do that."
Sometimes it's a horseshit trick. But sometimes
it's a way by which the poet says
I wish I could tell you,
truly, of the little factory
in my head: the smokestacks
chuffing, the dandelions
and purslane and willows of sweet clover
prying through the blacktop.
I wish I could tell you
how inside is the steady mumble and clank of machines.
But mostly I wish I could tell you of the footsteps I hear,
more than I can ever count,
all of whose gaits I can discern by listening, closely.
Which promptly disappear
after being lodged again,
here, where we started, in the factory
where loss makes all things
beautiful glow.
Aphoteosis! Eternal Spring!
Ross Gay's surname seems to have been fitted to suit his expression of life exultant, his melifluous poetry, written in blank verse. It is fertile; it is the poetry of the earth and of the moving spirit which encompasses the radiance and sound of laughter that comes with the breeze, or with the leaf's autumnal descent. A poetry which is hope exponentiated can only bring one who reads it hope: rosy spectacles in which to feel the magic of movement and the beauty of ressurection in the magic of all things. Especially things lost.
This is what I miss most in the vast majority of portuguese poets: the unrestrained joy of feeling.
I can't help but rejoice at the thought that there is great poetry being written and recognized as an expression of human excellence.
August 1, 2015
Devoured this delicious book of poetry during breaks at Soulfire Farm's Black and Latino Farmer Immersion.
I loved listening to, meeting and communing with permaculture poet Ross Gay. There is no substitute for the animated way he reads his work. Definitely go see him reading live if you have the opportunity.
A must-savor collection for anyone who digs nature, gardening, farming, orchards, the outdoors and vibrant imagery. The way Ross sees the world, his divine diction and rhythm, playfully (and sometimes painfully) etched with tiny heart-opening moments of the abundance of the simple life is a gift to us all. Thank you!
I loved listening to, meeting and communing with permaculture poet Ross Gay. There is no substitute for the animated way he reads his work. Definitely go see him reading live if you have the opportunity.
A must-savor collection for anyone who digs nature, gardening, farming, orchards, the outdoors and vibrant imagery. The way Ross sees the world, his divine diction and rhythm, playfully (and sometimes painfully) etched with tiny heart-opening moments of the abundance of the simple life is a gift to us all. Thank you!
August 13, 2017
In short, I didn't like this book. Mostly, I didn't like the style. There weren't enough punctuation breaks, so the lines ran into each other and the rhythm got lost. There wasn't a single poem, or even a single line, that I liked. I don't understand why this won awards, to be honest.
Read the review on my blog here.
Read the review on my blog here.
December 28, 2015
Ross was my professor, so I am not exactly objective, but this book is so good. I wish it won all the awards. The poem "Spoon," an elegy for Don Belton, is unforgettable.
An undercurrent of these poems:
Gratitude and joy can subvert the cruel and racist systems of domination that grind people down. Reveling in beauty &etc.
An undercurrent of these poems:
Gratitude and joy can subvert the cruel and racist systems of domination that grind people down. Reveling in beauty &etc.
May 2, 2021
"Thank you what does not scare her
in me, but makes her reach my way. Thank you the love
she is which hurts sometimes."
These poems sound like birds flapping their wings and the buzzing of bees and they smell of cow shit, honey and sweat. They taste like the juice of a peach running down my chin and staining my favorite shirt, like missing my mom, like figs.
in me, but makes her reach my way. Thank you the love
she is which hurts sometimes."
These poems sound like birds flapping their wings and the buzzing of bees and they smell of cow shit, honey and sweat. They taste like the juice of a peach running down my chin and staining my favorite shirt, like missing my mom, like figs.
November 20, 2022
poems on the beauty in grief, loss, and nature. some of these poems were pretty long-winded (which isn’t my favorite poetry to read) but i adored ross gay’s hopeful perspective and insight. reading this felt like spring and a warm, comforting hug.
3.75/5 🌿🌸🪺
3.75/5 🌿🌸🪺
December 5, 2019
This is Ross Gay’s third volume of poetry. It won the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the National Critics Circle Award for Poetry and a finalist for the National Book Award. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, he teaches at Indiana University. He was not a motivated student, but thanks to a few teachers along the way who saw his potential, he eventually earned a BA from Lafayette College, an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and a PhD in English from Temple University.
This volume of Gay’s has poems that are light, and funny, that show his gardener’s love of earth and plants, and occasionally look into his life as a black man in America. This volume includes several odes which stand up well to the famous odes of Pablo Neruda. Like Neruda, Gay’s odes honor ordinary things in his life including “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt”.
this is not something to be taken lightly
the gift
of buttoning one’s shirt
slowly
top to bottom
or bottom to top or sometimes
the buttons will be on the other side
The poem “To the mulberry tree” shows his gardener side. This excerpt is an illustration of his connection to plants and the earth, and his humor:
Everybody knows it’s good luck
If inconvenient
when a bird shits on you
but even moreso
good luck if the bird shits on you
when you’re plucking
gold current tomatoes
sweet enough to make your bare feet
lift just so
off the ground
and the beetles below scurry
and giggle
Included here is an interview with the author about this book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwgMm...
Gay’s poems will pull you in, make you laugh and cry,
This volume of Gay’s has poems that are light, and funny, that show his gardener’s love of earth and plants, and occasionally look into his life as a black man in America. This volume includes several odes which stand up well to the famous odes of Pablo Neruda. Like Neruda, Gay’s odes honor ordinary things in his life including “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt”.
this is not something to be taken lightly
the gift
of buttoning one’s shirt
slowly
top to bottom
or bottom to top or sometimes
the buttons will be on the other side
The poem “To the mulberry tree” shows his gardener side. This excerpt is an illustration of his connection to plants and the earth, and his humor:
Everybody knows it’s good luck
If inconvenient
when a bird shits on you
but even moreso
good luck if the bird shits on you
when you’re plucking
gold current tomatoes
sweet enough to make your bare feet
lift just so
off the ground
and the beetles below scurry
and giggle
Included here is an interview with the author about this book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwgMm...
Gay’s poems will pull you in, make you laugh and cry,
January 5, 2024
Is there any poet whose work I look forward to more than Ross Gay? This is one of the great books of joy, even when it is elegiac. Here's a few words I published about this book:
More than 150 years ago Walt Whitman, who might indeed have been blindly optimistic, wrote, “O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!” American literature since Whitman has had a few celebratory moments, but we seem to have settled into an extended period of anger, loss, and irony, albeit often beautifully and passionately written. Other places–like Latin America, for instance–were more comfortable with a broader emotional palette. Pablo Neruda, in addition to writing the great historical poems of South America, could write hundreds of odes celebrating the commonest things–his socks, a large tuna, lost things.
And now, suddenly, an American writer has assumed Neruda’s mantle of joy and is being honored for it. Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude was on almost everyone’s list of best poetry books of 2015, and is still short-listed for some of the major awards. In Gay’s Catalog the poet writes long odes to small things, in short lines that offer their homage to Neruda but put Gay’s own spin on things. “Ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt” begins, “No one knew or at least / I didn’t know / they knew / what the thin disks / threaded here / on my shirt / might give me / in terms of joy / this is not something to be taken lightly / the gift / of buttoning one’s shirt / slowly …” The poem rushes on with conjunctions and without punctuation for three pages celebrating the act of putting on and taking off a shirt! By the end of the poem, you’re convinced that the simplicity of every action is actually important.
Gay is a gardener and keeps an orchard in Bloomington, Indiana, and he luxuriates in the things he has planted and nurtures. The long poem “The opening” begins with an homage to his father but switches in the middle to the story of the poet pruning a peach tree he has planted. He admits a certain sadness in the process of trimming but knows it is important: “This is how, every spring, // I promise the fruit will swell with sugar: by bringing in the air and light– / until, like the old-timers say, the tree is open enough // for a bird to fly through. Which, in fact, they do–two cardinals flirting; a blue jay flashing its pompadour …”
Gay does not ignore life’s pains. He writes movingly about his mother’s sadness and the dignity of his father, in the midst of difficult labor. He has a long elegy for his colleague Don Belton, who was horribly murdered in a crime of twisted passion. The poet has not shut his eyes to all of this. But in the title poem, “Catalog of unabashed gratitude,” he dreams of a bird speaking directly to him:
it was telling me
in no uncertain terms
to bellow forth the tubas and sousaphones,
the whole rusty brass band of gratitude
not quite dormant in my belly–
it said so in a human voice,
“Bellow forth”–
and who among us could ignore such odd
and precise counsel?
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
More than 150 years ago Walt Whitman, who might indeed have been blindly optimistic, wrote, “O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!” American literature since Whitman has had a few celebratory moments, but we seem to have settled into an extended period of anger, loss, and irony, albeit often beautifully and passionately written. Other places–like Latin America, for instance–were more comfortable with a broader emotional palette. Pablo Neruda, in addition to writing the great historical poems of South America, could write hundreds of odes celebrating the commonest things–his socks, a large tuna, lost things.
And now, suddenly, an American writer has assumed Neruda’s mantle of joy and is being honored for it. Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude was on almost everyone’s list of best poetry books of 2015, and is still short-listed for some of the major awards. In Gay’s Catalog the poet writes long odes to small things, in short lines that offer their homage to Neruda but put Gay’s own spin on things. “Ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt” begins, “No one knew or at least / I didn’t know / they knew / what the thin disks / threaded here / on my shirt / might give me / in terms of joy / this is not something to be taken lightly / the gift / of buttoning one’s shirt / slowly …” The poem rushes on with conjunctions and without punctuation for three pages celebrating the act of putting on and taking off a shirt! By the end of the poem, you’re convinced that the simplicity of every action is actually important.
Gay is a gardener and keeps an orchard in Bloomington, Indiana, and he luxuriates in the things he has planted and nurtures. The long poem “The opening” begins with an homage to his father but switches in the middle to the story of the poet pruning a peach tree he has planted. He admits a certain sadness in the process of trimming but knows it is important: “This is how, every spring, // I promise the fruit will swell with sugar: by bringing in the air and light– / until, like the old-timers say, the tree is open enough // for a bird to fly through. Which, in fact, they do–two cardinals flirting; a blue jay flashing its pompadour …”
Gay does not ignore life’s pains. He writes movingly about his mother’s sadness and the dignity of his father, in the midst of difficult labor. He has a long elegy for his colleague Don Belton, who was horribly murdered in a crime of twisted passion. The poet has not shut his eyes to all of this. But in the title poem, “Catalog of unabashed gratitude,” he dreams of a bird speaking directly to him:
it was telling me
in no uncertain terms
to bellow forth the tubas and sousaphones,
the whole rusty brass band of gratitude
not quite dormant in my belly–
it said so in a human voice,
“Bellow forth”–
and who among us could ignore such odd
and precise counsel?
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
March 22, 2016
from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
Ode to Sleeping in My Clothes
And though I don’t mention it
to my mother
or the doctors
with their white coats
it is, in fact,
a great source of happiness,
for me, as I don’t
even remove my socks,
and will sometimes
even pull up my hood
and slide my hands deep
in my pockets
and probably moreso
than usual look as if something
bad has happened
my heart blasting a last somersault
or some artery parting
like curtains in a theatre
while the cavalry of blood
comes charging through
except unlike
so many of the dead
I must be smiling
there in my denim
and cotton sarcophagus
slightly rank from the day
it is said that Shostakovich slept
with a packed suitcase beneath
his bed and it is said
that black people were snatched
from dark streets and made experiments
of and you and I
both have family whose life
savings are tucked 12 feet beneath
the Norway maple whose roots
splay like the bones
in the foot of man
who was walked to Youngstown, Ohio
from Arkansas without sleeping
or keeping his name
and it’s a miracle
maybe I almost never think of
to rise like this
and simply by sliding my feet into my boots
while the water for coffee
gathers its song
be in the garden
or on the stoop
running, almost,
from nothing.
Ode to Sleeping in My Clothes
And though I don’t mention it
to my mother
or the doctors
with their white coats
it is, in fact,
a great source of happiness,
for me, as I don’t
even remove my socks,
and will sometimes
even pull up my hood
and slide my hands deep
in my pockets
and probably moreso
than usual look as if something
bad has happened
my heart blasting a last somersault
or some artery parting
like curtains in a theatre
while the cavalry of blood
comes charging through
except unlike
so many of the dead
I must be smiling
there in my denim
and cotton sarcophagus
slightly rank from the day
it is said that Shostakovich slept
with a packed suitcase beneath
his bed and it is said
that black people were snatched
from dark streets and made experiments
of and you and I
both have family whose life
savings are tucked 12 feet beneath
the Norway maple whose roots
splay like the bones
in the foot of man
who was walked to Youngstown, Ohio
from Arkansas without sleeping
or keeping his name
and it’s a miracle
maybe I almost never think of
to rise like this
and simply by sliding my feet into my boots
while the water for coffee
gathers its song
be in the garden
or on the stoop
running, almost,
from nothing.
July 23, 2015
Ross Gay's newest book reminds me of why I love poetry. The sincerity and precision. The music. The seeing and cataloging what is beautiful and what is perverse. Though every word is well placed and every line well cared for, the poems wander, and wallow, and address themselves, and yet never loose focus. In poems the reader might wonder how she got from sexual innuendo to sharing a meal with small-miracle worker: the bee, and so be forced to re-read and retrace the steps that got her there. Gay's poem dare to the face both small, beautiful moments (most people would stumble over them without noticing) and the moments so large, so painful (most people would be rendered speechless and fearful).
In case you're wondering, I think you should go read this book. Right now.
In case you're wondering, I think you should go read this book. Right now.
January 14, 2017
Fantastic book of poetry! Dripping with love for the natural world and gardening, the book paints pictures of what is beautiful in this world, even when he is writing poems on grieving his father, and the title poem is simply stunning and a must read for everyone.
October 3, 2017
ode to the flute
A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it
and make of it
at least
a small final song
A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it
and make of it
at least
a small final song
Displaying 1 - 30 of 883 reviews