From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes a "brilliant" intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection (Ada Limón, U.S. poet laureate). In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it. Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?
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Inciting Joy: Essays
From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes a "brilliant" intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection (Ada Limón, U.S. poet laureate). In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it. Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?
We’ve always been fans of poets bearing witness to the heavy that surrounds us each day. It’s their economy of words that cuts to the chase of what weighs on our hearts. Ross Gay returns to the essay format to let us know that joy is needed now. He also reminds us, it’s never gone anywhere. But still, this is a book for this moment. A beautiful manual for the heart.
From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes a "brilliant" intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection (Ada Limón, U.S. poet laureate). In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it. Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?
Ross Gay is the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights: Essays and four books of poetry. His Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Be Holding won the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. Gay has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.
Table of Contents
The First Incitement 1
Through My Tears I Saw (Death: The Second Incitement) 11
We Kin (The Garden: The Third Incitement) 28
Out of Time (Time: The Fourth Incitement) 43
Share Your Bucket! (Skateboarding: The Fifth Incitement) 57
Baby, This Might Be You, (Laughter: The Sixth Incitement) 66
(Dis)alienation Machinery (Losing Your Phone: The Seventh Incitement) 82
Free Fruit for All! (The Orchard: The Eighth Incitement) 94
Insurgent Hoop (Pickup Basketball: The Ninth Incitement) 112
How Big the Boat (The Cover: The Tenth Incitement) 123
Dispatch from the Ruins (School: The Eleventh Incitement) 137
Went Free (Dancing: The Twelfth Incitement) 171
Grief Suite (Failing Apart: The Thirteenth Incitement) 176
Oh, My Heart (Gratitude: The Fourteenth Incitement) 230
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