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

Contents:

• HOW ROSS GAY FDS JOY IN THE SMALLT OF 'DELIGHTS'
• UNABASHED GRATITUDE & STRUCTURES OF CARE, WH POET GARDENER ROSS GAY
• ROSS GAY: INTERVIEW—BE HOLDG, GRATU, DELIGHTS
• ROSS GAY’S UNFOLDG UNRSTANDG OF UNABASHED GRATU
• ROSS GAY
• ROSS GAY INTERVIEW AT JACKET COPY: HE HAS HIS OWN ORCHARD!
• ROSS GAY

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

Today, we're stg down wh the wrer 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. Ross Gay is passnate about poetry, garng and basketball. Gay jt moved back to Bloomgton, Indiana, after a ne-month fellowship at Harvard Universy.

UNABASHED GRATITUDE & STRUCTURES OF CARE, WH POET GARDENER ROSS GAY

Gay says he wr poems about thgs that he has powerful qutns about, “qutns that a poem won’t answer. Gay is also workg on a book about nnectns between land and race.

ROSS GAY: INTERVIEW—BE HOLDG, GRATU, DELIGHTS

Gay wrote a poem about Eric Garner, the Ain-Amerin man who died after New York Cy police officers put him a chokehold while tryg to arrt him. Gay says he was stck after readg his obuary The New York Tim.

Gay’s poem “Burial” is about the ath of his father and about transformatn. You n hear Gay read the poem here or read the text below.

From Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratu”, Ptsburgh Poetry Seri (2015). Ross Gay is the thor of three books: “Agast Which”, “Brgg the Shovel Down”, and “Catalog of Unabashed Gratu”, wner of the 2015 Natnal Book Crics Circle Award and the 2016 Kgsley Tufts Poetry Award.

ROSS GAY’S UNFOLDG UNRSTANDG OF UNABASHED GRATU

'" Poet and Garner, Teacher and Human - Ross GayRoss Gay is garner - he is also an award wng poet and a profsor.

ROSS GAY

"Poet and Garner, Teacher and Human - Ross Gaythor of "talog of unabashed gratu" (Universy of Ptsburgh Prs, 2015) Ross's work, as he says, is often about how we are tendg to one another this world. Poet and garner Ross Gay shar wh his powerful voice and reverence for the life of a garn and s garner – munal, dividual, spirual and many ways people cultivate their plac mov me every sgle day. THINKING OUT LOUD this so thkg out loud this week –When I say that garns and garners are tersectnal agents of powerful powerful change this world - Ross Gay and his garng impulse are everythg to do wh this - he, his stunts, the tre the munal orchard, the muny of humans related to the muny orchard (and we all are humans related to the muny orchard), embody the perfect fact that Garng is an ethil orientatn towards generosy, abundance, re, Joy and an herent and perennial sense of Thanksgivg.

I am Nadia Colburn, and I am here today wh Ross Gay. 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. Ross Gay: All of .

ROSS GAY INTERVIEW AT JACKET COPY: HE HAS HIS OWN ORCHARD!

Ross Gay: Jt north of Philalphia. Ross Gay: Well, that is very much my poetic and ethil and spirual practice.

ROSS GAY

Ross Gay: That’s here.

Ross Gay: I know . Ross Gay: I don’t know that a kid would say this, but ’s sort of like this has been given to me, like the sun g through through the tre or the sun filterg through that squirrel hangg on that oak tree, through the qutn mark of that squirrels tail, the sun is actually filtered, that has been given to me. Ross Gay: They’re notg all of this stuff that is so often as an adult, we don’t notice.