Ross Gay
Ross Gay wants to understand joy. He is the author of four books of poetry and two essay collections, including Inciting Joy, which was published in October 2022.
Some Thoughts On Mercy
When we have mercy, deep and abiding change might happen.
June 2023Introduction to The Language of Trees
A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape
In this new collection from Tin House, Irish artist and editor Katie Holten gathers writing in celebration of the natural world from more than fifty contributors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Ada Limón, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Gleick, Elizabeth Kolbert, Plato, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Holten includes an illustrated version of each selection based on her tree alphabet. We are pleased to share Ross Gay’s introduction to the book as an exclusive online excerpt. The Language of Trees is out today, April 4, 2023.
The Ramshackle Garden Of Affection
Dear Ross: How can you miss on purpose? If I’m late getting back on defense, you’ll bounce the ball off the bottom of the rim and catch the “rebound” for a point. Alone under the basket. Missing.
Dear Noah: Bouncing the ball off the bottom of the rim is, as you say, a poorly missed shot, but also a perfectly missed one, because it results in a point in our game, which means it’s a way for me to stay on the court. If there were a way I could stay on the court without cheating — without those perfectly, beautifully missed shots — believe me, I would do it.
June 2020Some Thoughts On Mercy
Among the more concrete ramifications of this corruption of the imagination is that when the police suspect a black man or boy of having a gun, he becomes murderable: Murderable despite having earned advanced degrees or bought a cute house or written a couple of books of poetry. Murderable whether he’s an unarmed adult or a child riding a bike in the opposite direction. Murderable in the doorways of our houses.
July 2013Becoming A Horse
It was dragging my hands along its belly, / loosing the bit and wiping the spit / from its mouth that made me / a snatch of grass in the thing’s maw, / a fly tasting its ear.
July 2012Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.
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