Ross Gay: Interview—Be Holdg, Gratu, Delights | Nadia Colburn

Contents:

• HOW ROSS GAY FDS JOY IN THE SMALLT OF 'DELIGHTS'
• ROSS GAY: INTERVIEW—BE HOLDG, GRATU, DELIGHTS
• POET ROSS GAY ON HIS NEW BOOK AND FDG JOY SORROW
• ROSS GAY
• COMEDIAN COREY HOLB CLAIMS RICK ROSS IS GAY!!
• 7. ROSS GAY
• ROSS GAY’S SECRETS FOR LIVG A MORE JOYFUL LIFE

HOW ROSS GAY FDS JOY IN THE SMALLT OF 'DELIGHTS'

Ross Gay’s newt book shows why we need humany and nnectn to fd happs and succs.

Prize-wng poet and thor Ross Gay is about to challenge everythg you thought you knew about what means to “be together. Tune on Wednday, April 12, as Ross Gay jos the Natnal Wrers Seri, partnership wh Interlochen Center for the Arts, for a special prentatn of Incg Joy and a radil exploratn of what happens when people e together.

ROSS GAY: INTERVIEW—BE HOLDG, GRATU, DELIGHTS

A native of Youngstown, Oh, Gay wasn’t what he’d ll a “rearly” kid.

“I thk a lot of what I’ve learned about makg poems om how hard I was listeng to mic and studyg [that] language, ” Gay explas. “I loved his [work], ” says Gay.

After pletg his studi at Lafayette College, Gay went on to earn an MFA poetry om Sarah Lawrence College, followed by a PhD English om Temple Universy.

POET ROSS GAY ON HIS NEW BOOK AND FDG JOY SORROW

Gay is also an edor wh two chapbook prs and a foundg edor of the onle sports magaze Some Call Ball’. In addn to his wrg reer, Gay teach at Indiana Universy and Drew Universy’s low-rincy MFA program, where his class clu poetry and poetry translatn. Much of Gay’s succs, he says, stems om his llege wrg llective.

While he adms that every poem he prted felt like a dream e te at the time, belongg to a group of wrers not only helped promote Gay’s work by nnectg him to terted publishers but also cultivated an environment of cril artistic support. Gay highlights a quote om Fred Moten, an Amerin cultural theorist and poet, as a foundatnal ncept for the llectn. “At one pot, [Moten] says that we’ve got to get together to figure out how we’re gog to get together, ” Gay says.

ROSS GAY

Instead, Gay says, “joy seems to be somethg like the practice of our entanglement”—that is, the nate human impulse to re for and belong to each other, an experience so monplace that we often don’t even notice . ”) to the vegetable garn “We K, ” which Gay picts as a mol for sharg.

“As I get olr, I have more of a sire to tsle wh thgs that are happeng, ” says Gay. For Gay, though, the high pot of the llectn is a realizatn he mak an say lled “How Big the Boat, ” where he par an image of Dnne Warwick (picted the 1988 NAACP Image Awards watchg Luther Vandross ver her song) to that of basketball player Gary Payton rponse to a move by opponent Jay Williams. “[Warwick and Payton] are makg the same face, ” says Gay, which he scrib as “beg cut back” by bety.

COMEDIAN COREY HOLB CLAIMS RICK ROSS IS GAY!!

An Eveng wh Ross Gay tak place at 7:30pm on Wednday, April 12, at Corson Audorium at Interlochen Center for the Arts and via livtream.

Today, we're stg down wh the wrer Ross Gay.

7. ROSS GAY

So many thgs light Ross Gay: handma fy srv and loerg, the joy of rryg a heavy bag between two people, paw paws and even weeds.

This summer, I reread yet aga and found myself medatg on a sire Gay had voiced: wantg to be softer a world so ready to sharpen and to make hard.

So, a recent terview, I talked to Gay about that sire, as well as the role of joy daily life, the difficulty of allowg yourself to be moved, and why he thks 's important to e the word "love. I am Nadia Colburn, and I am here today wh Ross Gay.

ROSS GAY’S SECRETS FOR LIVG A MORE JOYFUL LIFE

Ross Gay is the thor of four books of poetry: Agast Which; Brgg the Shovel Down; Be Holdg; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratu, and wner of the 2015 Natnal Book Crics Circle Award and the 2016 Kgsley Tufts Poetry Award. Ross Gay: Thank you, ’s good to be wh you too. Ross Gay: That’s such a good qutn.