Ross Gay Books In Order

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Ross Gay is a published author.

He is known for writing The Book of Delights, a book of essays, and books of poetry which include Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.

He has also co-authored the chapbook “Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens” with Aimee Nezhukumatathil. He is also the co-author of the chapbook “River” with Richard Wehrenberg, Jr.

Ross Gay is a founding editor of the online sports magazine “Some Call It Ballin’” with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal. He is also an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press.

Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, which is a non-profit food justice and joy project that offers free fruit for all.

Ross has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Cave Canem, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is an instructor at Indiana University.

The Book of Delights is a 2019 collection of essays written by Ross Gay. You may have heard about this book on NPR’s This American Life. It is a New York Times best selling book that celebrates the ordinary delights that we can find in the world around us written by Ross Gay, award-winning poet.

This is the book that caught the attention of Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, who says that the book bolstered her ‘belief in the countless small miracles that surround us’.

In this book, the winner of the National Book Critics Award for Poetry gives readers a spirited collection of short essays that are lyrical in nature. The essays were written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of celebrating all of the ordinary wonders around us, praising and extolling them.

One of the most original voices in literature today offers up the reader a genre-defying volume of lyrical essays that are sure to inspire you along the way. It is a record of the small joys that we all too often overlook while going about our everyday busy lives.

There are so many philosophical and poetic delights gone over in these essays. Some of Gay’s personal funny delights include a friend who uses air quotes, cradling a tomato seedling while being on board an airplane, or the silent nod of acknowledgment between two black people in a room.

In addition, Gay chooses not to dismiss the complexities or even the terror of what it is to live in the United States as a black man or the loss of those he loves or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture.

Gay chooses instead to celebrate and show us the beauty of the natural world that he lives in. Whether it’s his garden, or the way that a praying mantis moves, or flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, he shares them with the reader and sparks the inspiration to view the small things in our lives with more clarity and appreciation.

The Book of Delights is about the small things in this world that we all share, and the rewards that can come out of a life closely observed. Like watering a garden, your attention will flow where you point it. These essays serve as a necessary reminder that all of us have the opportunity to make some room in our lives for delight.

Inciting Joy is an inspirational collection of essays by Ross Gay that are all about the joy that can come from connection.

In these intentionally written and timely pieces of writing, prize-winning poet and author Ross Gay contemplates the joy that we are able to incite when we care for each other, especially during the inevitable hardships of life.

Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection and also how we are able to expand it. Taking a clear eyed look at things such as political polarization, injustice, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows all of us how we might be able to resists, and how the study of joy might just help us survive.

In a time when dividing voices take up so much space, this book offers an alternative thought of what might be possible if we start turning our attention to what is able to bring us together and what we truly love. Read this book to find out more and absorb all that Ross Gay has to say!