Poetry the new york school ross gay
The Gig
Poetry in the Paint? I’m not talking about Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray last bedtime in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, though I think metaphor works. No, I’m actually being more literal here, and alluding to Be Holding, an astonishing modern interdisciplinary work based on Ross Gay’s book-length poem of the same title, and featuring a musical score by Tyshawn Sorey. It’s a site-specific piece staged center court at the historic Girard College Armory in North Philadelphia.
I saw Be Holding in rehearsals last Friday, and again on Wednesday, the premiere of a four-night run. Here’s a piece I wrote for WRTI last month, which gets into some of the establishing details of the work. Like Gay’s poem, it’s inspired at its core by a transcendent moment from another NBA Finals matchup — Game 4 of the 1980 series between the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers.
If you follow basketball, you probably comprehend The Shot: a behind-the-board reverse layup by a gravity-defying Julius Erving. It’s routinely cited as one of the greatest shots in the history of the NBA, including by the NBA itself. Here’s the clip. If you don’t already comprehend it — yes, the really elevated guy on d
Kate Likes Stuff
Once again: hello. It's been a few weeks, hasn't it? I actually didn't fail to remember about this little writing territory, nor did I lack ideas (or the willingness to dump a list of stuff I dig on everyone). I was actually on the move the last few weekends, which was a change of pace from my usual Friday routine of writing in bed. Which, obviously, I am currently doing.
Two Fridays ago I was visiting Purdue, which was a blast, and I'm tempted to write a whole post about my ultimate Poetry and Comics class (hi, class! Wasn't that fun?). I traveled back to New York last Tuesday, woke up on Wednesday to this unforgettable Ross Gay poem in my inbox, and then decided on Thursday night to visit some friends in Philly and Allentown. So then last Friday, during the hours I would normally complete writing up a newsletter entry, I was on a bus to Philadelphia. What are you gonna do?
I lived in Allentown for six years, and I haven't been back to stop by since 2019. Which is a very evasive way of saying that I still consider Allentown one of my homes and that being back was a great personal joy, especially spending time with people who express an even greater deal to me. I read a superb
Transcription by Alletta Cooper
Krista Tippett: In our world of so much suffering, it can feel hard or wrong to invoke the word “joy.” Yet pleasure has been one of the most insistent, recurrent rallying cries in almost every life-giving conversation I’ve had across recent months and years, even and especially with people on front lines of humanity’s struggles.
And Ross Gay helps illuminate this paradox and turn it into a muscle.
We are good at fighting, as he puts it, and not as good at holding in our imaginations what is to be adored and preserved and exalted — advocating for what we romance, for what we locate beautiful and necessary. And without this, he says, we can not talk meaningfully even about our longings for a more just world, a more whole existence for all. I love this wisdom of Ross: that we practice tenderness and mercy in part because to understand that we are all suffering is a quality of what he calls “adult joy.” He is a poet and essayist and teacher, a passionate community gardener, also a former college football player. Beginning with his cherished essay collection The Book of Delights, he began to accompany many in learning — I would
Delighting in Ross Same-sex attracted, One Essay at a Time
I put off beginning the poet Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, which was published earlier this year, because I was afraid it would end too instantly. I felt sure that the book’s 102 essays, most between one paragraph and three pages in length, would be kin to his poems, which are tender, tactile, and human, whether he’s celebrating the spastic joy of listening to a good song (“drift / of hip oh, trill of ribs, / oh synaptic clamor and juggernaut / swell oh gutracket / blastoff and sugartongue”) or articulating a swelling fury, as he does in the evocatively titled “Within Two Weeks the African American Poet Ross Male lover is Mistaken for Both the African American Poet Terrance Hayes and the African American Poet Kyle Dargan, Not One of Whom Looks Anything Enjoy the Others.” They are poems about being alert to the world and feeling ripe for play and wonder.
Gay wrote the book’s essays (and many others that didn’t make it into the final draft) over the period of a year, one each morning, for the straightforward reason that he thought it would be nice to write about delight every day. The handful o