Ross Gay
University of Pittsburgh Press, 112 pages
I was a young pastor when a mentor said simply, “Read poetry.” Many years later I count that advice as a jewel of wisdom. It set within me a discipline of reading poetry. Actually, it is more like eating poems. Many are inseparable from who I am. They show up everywhere; in fact, they lead me to places I may not have otherwise gone. Poems happily infiltrate my dreams and inform my sermons.
Ross Gay is one of the poets that pastors ought to read. This book, which I was drawn to by the title alone, is a rollicking exaltation of life. Gay is immensely grateful for everything and his language evokes that gratitude for the rest of us. The poems sing of blueberries and peach trees, streets alive, wild dreams and wonder-filled moments of ecstasy. There is, indeed, unabashed gratitude in these poems. The cadence is rap and symphony, staccato and slow rhythm, all in the same long-winding poem. Reading the title poem, I found myself slowing down then quickly speeding up to stay with the unabashed joy of the poet. He was taking me with him into a grand, wild experience not unlike hearing Walt Whitman running alongside Mary Oliver. The poet here is unafraid of the body with its sensual joys. He is wildly fierce in announcing life is indeed astonishing — to feel it, taste it, see it is prayer.
— Roy W. Howard, Outlook book editor
