In the poem “Burial,” Gay sprinkles his father’s ashes on the roots of new trees, both “hoping to coax him back” and celebrating the “magic dust our bodies become.”
Gay’s praise is Whitmanesque, full of manure, mulberry stained purple bird poop, dirty clothes, hangovers but also the pleasure of bare feet, of pruning a peach tree, of feeding a neighbor. In the face of racism, murders, addiction, and bombs going off, Gay dares to attempt an exuberant sweetness, to sing in the face of loss. The book starts with an ode to a local fig tree and weaves outward-including in its sweep praise for buttons, compost piles, Gay’s father’s ashes, insects, the birds, Gay’s feet, Gay’s neighbors, and the world. Circling this plot, Gay’s poems burst forth in leggy, unexpected ways-zooming in on “legs furred with pollen” or soil “breast stroking into the xylem.” This is why I was so grateful to read Ross Gay’s messy, juicy collection about his life as a community orchardist, helping to raise pawpaws and persimmons in an orchard the public can tend and also pick. Sometimes, in this age of irony, disillusionment, and moral outrage, it is hard to find convincing language for praise, or space for praising at all.
Today, NBCC board member Tess Taylor on poetry finalist Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press).Ĭatalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay (University of Pittsburgh Press) In the days leading up to the March 17 announcement of the 2015 NBCC award winners, Critical Mass highlights t he thirty finalists.
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