Ross Gay - 'Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude'

Ross Gay reads "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2016: Poems of Provocation & Witness, April 15, 2016 at the National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Video filmed and edited by Carey Averbrook

[PatriciaMcConnell-wr]

Ross Gay’s books and poetry. First time I e listened to him. His books are incredible

[zsatiradiamond]

Most underrated piece of written word of all time

[jenniferhauf]

Thank you Ross Gay for your exquisite knack of making my weep for and with the sadness and joy of all things. You Are A Delight.

[jjlatinopedia]

Taking a Literature class.. ..I read the poem first, and then read along as I heard him through my speakers.

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Very much enjoyed your passionate and unique word choices That had me engaged throughout.
I, too, am a poet ( and also a fiction story writer which I’ll elaborate shortly ) but for now let me say I write mostly Japanese format poems i.e. haiku, senryu, tanka/kyoka, haibun etc. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a Tanka and a haiku dedicated to Matshuo Bashō’s frog with added insightful commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my haiku among her 10 favorite haiku of all time! What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem with Jane Reichhold’ insightful commentary:


Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples


At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum.

The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism–ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water

As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider–including us all. But his last word reminds us that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.

~~

Now the tanka:

returning home from
a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear paint on my face
and morph into art

~~

Finally, the fictional story that I alluded to earlier. It not only should appeal to Afro-Americans but all individual and groups that experience racial discrimination. It is based on a true incident that took place in the 1950s when racial prejudice was rampant. My story has an unexpected heartwarming ending that coincides with my own belief akin to Dr Martin Luther King’s in a non-violent approach and resolution to racial injustice Titled “ Eloise, Edna And The Chicken Coop”

ELOISE, EDNA & THE CHICKEN COOP

There was once a Black lady named Eloise who inherited from her grandmother a parcel of land in the suburbs of Compton California at a time when there was strong racial prejudice against women of color—especially those Black women who owned property in predominately white neighborhoods.
It happened there lived adjacent to Eloise’s land a white woman named Edna who did not like the fact that this Black woman owned land next to hers.
Eloise would try to be friendly because she believed Jesus when He said “Love Thy Neighbor” and to Eloise that meant even if your neighbor was unfriendly.
But whenever Eloise saw Edna, Edna would turn her back in disdain. In fact, ever since her husband died a decade ago, Edna became mean and unfriendly to everyone in the neighborhood.
But to Eloise, she was so hateful and full of animosity that one night when all the lights in Eloise home were off Edna went to her own backyard where she kept her chicken coop and gathered up all the manure and dumped it on Eloise land and upon her tomatoes and her greens and everything she was growing, in an attempt to destroy it.
And when Eloise realized the next morning that there was all this manure, instead of becoming angry, she decided to rake and mix it in with the soil and use it as fertilizer.
Every night Edna would dump the manure from her chicken coop litter box and Eloise would get up in the morning and turn it over and mix it.
This went on for almost a month until one morning Eloise noticed there was no manure in her yard.
Then one of the neighbors informed Eloise that Edna had fallen ill. But because Edna was so mean and unfriendly, no one came to see her when she was sick.
But when Eloise heard about Edna’s condition she picked the best flowers from her garden, walked to Edna’s house, knocked on her front door and when Edna opened the door, she was in complete shock that this Black Woman who she had been so cruel to, would be the only neighbor to visit
her and bring flowers.
Edna was deeply moved by Eloise kindness.
Then Eloise handed the flowers to Edna who said,
“These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen! Where’d you get them?”
Eloise replied,
“You helped me make them, Edna, because when you were dumping in my yard, I decided to plant some roses and use your manure as fertilizer.“
This genuine act of kindness opened the floodgate of Edna’s heart that had been closed for so long.
“When I’m feeling better, I would love to have you over for tea, ” Edna told Eloise.
“Thank you, “ Edna replied, assuring her she would come. And then added, “I will pray for your speedy recovery every night.”
And with those words Eloise departed.

It’s amazing what can blossom from manure.
There are some who allow manure to fall on them and do nothing.
But then there are others—like Eloise —who “turn the other cheek” when abused or in this case “turn over the soil” to make something new like those bevy of beautiful red roses that opened a white woman’s
heart.

~~

—All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
-Al

[annburke]

I’m grateful for you and your joyous exuberant expressions of delight especially on this day of feeling so small and sad.

[stephaniejefferson]

SPOILER ALERT (and TRIGGER WARNING?)

What do you think this ...
is, other than loving
what every second goes away?Goodbye, I mean to say.
And thank you. Every day.”

👌🏽 PERFECT! Just. Perfect.

[Jake-pnwr]

Ross Gay truly is one of the greats :-) Side note: My version on Kindle is different than what he read in this video. Right before he says "Thank you Zannina" there is a whole section missing. Maybe different versions published? Just curious about this

[mariajames-thiaw]

Is that the shirt you bought in Carlisle, PA? If so, I'm really proud. LOL. Fabulous reading of a fabulous book. Amazing.

[stcenturymusicman]

I really hate all the laughter honestly. If you actually pay attention to what he’s talking about and understand the metaphors and elegies throughout, it’s actually a pretty sad story, not particularly funny really. The crowd is just laughing at the words at their face value like curse words or words they think sound funny but aren’t getting the bigger picture. This is about appreciating what we have in life because it’s going away. You can find videos of Ross Gay himself talking about this