Ross Gay

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.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy is back with a new chronicle of small, daily wonders—and it is exactly the book we need in these unsettling times. Ross Gay’s essays have been called “exquisite” (Tracy K. Smith), “imperative” (the New York Times Book Review ), and “brilliant” (Ada Limón). Now, in this new collection of genre-defying pieces, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “ubiquitous, nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. For his many fans eagerly awaiting this new volume and for readers who have enjoyed the works of Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zadie Smith, and Rebecca Solnit, Gay once again offers us “literature that feels as fluent and familiar as a chat with a close friend” (the New York Review of Books ). The Book of (More) Delights is a collection to savor and share.  

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays—some as short as a paragraph; some as long as five pages—that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical delights: the way Botan Rice Candy wrappers melt in your mouth, the volunteer crossing guard with a pronounced tremor whom he imagines as a kind of boat-woman escorting pedestrians across the River Styx, a friend’s unabashed use of air quotes, pickup basketball games, the silent nod of acknowledgment between black people. And more than any other subject, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world—his garden, the flowers in the sidewalk, the birds, the bees, the mushrooms, the trees. This is not a book of how-to or inspiration, though it could be read that way. Fans of Roxane Gay, Maggie Nelson, and Kiese Laymon will revel in Gay’s voice, and his insights. The Book of Delights is about our connection to the world, to each other, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. Gay’s pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.  Preface 1. My Birthday, Kinda 2. Inefficiency 3. Flower in the Curb 4. Blowing It Off 5. Hole in the Head 6. Remission Still 7. Praying Mantis 8. The Negreeting 9. The High-Five from Strangers, Etc 10. Writing by Hand 11. Transplanting 12. Nicknames 13. But, Maybe .. 14. "Joy Is Such a Human Madness 15. House Party 16. Hummingbird 17. Just a Dream 18. "That's Some Bambi Shit" .. 19. The Irrepressible: The Gratitudes 20. Tap Tap 21. Coffee without the Saucer 22. Lily on the Pants 23. Sharing a Bag 24. Umbrella in the Café 25. Beast Mode 26. Airplane Rituals 27. Weirdly Untitled 28. Pecans 29. The Do-Over 30. Infinity 31. Ghost 32. Nota Bene 33. "Love Me in a Special Way" 34. "Stay," by Lisa Loeb 35. Stacking Delights 36. Donny Hathaway on Pandora 37. "To Spread the Sweetness of Love" 38. Baby, Baby, Baby 39. "REPENT OR BURN" 40. Giving My Body to the Cause 41. Among the Rewards of My Sloth . . 42. Not Grumpy Cat 43. Some Stupid Shit 44. Not Only . . 45. Microgentrification: WE BUY GOLD 46. Reading Palms 47. The Sanctity of Trains 48. Bird Feeding 49. Kombucha in a Mid-century Glass 50. Hickories 51. Annoyed No More 52. Toto 53. Church Poets 54. Public Lying Down 55. Babies. Seriously 56. "My Life, My Life, My Life, My Life in the Sunshine 57. Incorporation 58. Botan Rice Candy 59. Understory 60. "Joy Is Such a Human Madness": The Duff Between Us 61. "It's Just the Day I'm Having" .. 62. The Purple Cornets of Spring 63. The Volunteer 64. Fishing an Eyelash: Two or Three Cents on the Virtues of the Poetry Reading 65. Found Things 66. Found Things (2) 67. Cuplicking 68. Bobblehead 69. The Jenky 70. The Crow's Ablutions 71. Flowers in the Hands of Statues 72. An Abundance of Public Toilets 73. The Wave of Unfamiliars 74. Not for Nothing 75. Bindweed ... Delight? 76. Dickhead 77. Ambiguous Signage Sometimes 78. Heart to Heart 79. Caution: Bees on Bridge 80. Tomato on Board 81. Purple-Handed 82. Name: Kayte Young; Phone Number: 555-867-5309 83. Still Processing 84. Fireflies 85. My Scythe Jack 86. Pawpaw Grove 87. Loitering 88. Touched 89. Scat 90. Get Thee to the Nutrient Cycle! 91. Pulling Carrots 92. Filling the Frame 93. Reckless Air Quotes 94. Judith Irene Gay, Aged Seventy-six Today! 95. Rothko Backboard 96. The Marfa Lights 97. The Carport 98. My Garden (Book): 99. Black Bumblebees! 100. Grown 101. Coco-baby 102. My Birthday

Be Holding is a love song to legendary basketball player Julius Erving—known as Dr. J—who dominated courts in the 1970s and ‘80s as a small forward for the Philadelphia ‘76ers. But this book-length poem is more than just an ode to a magnificent athlete. Through a kind of lyric research, or lyric meditation, Ross Gay connects Dr. J’s famously impossible move from the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers to pick-up basketball and the flying Igbo and the Middle Passage, to photography and surveillance and state violence, to music and personal histories of flight and familial love. Be Holding wonders how the imagination, or how our looking, might make us, or bring us, closer to each other. How our looking might make us reach for each other. And might make us be reaching for each other. And how that reaching might be something like joy.