We will discuss the book on April 26th with Clint Smith. In a poem about a deceased friend, he admits, 'I swore when I got into this poem I would convert/ this sorrow into some kind of honey.' Gay is known for his exuberant live readings, and though these poems don't translate perfectly to the page, they're inspiring nonetheless. The Stacks Book Club selection for April is Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay. He assumes the presence of an 'ancestor who loved you/ before she knew you.' Gay's incessant positivity takes a toll even on him, as evidenced by his occasional lament that he can't actually feel gratitude about or make beauty from the worst things in life. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes awayloved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know itthat tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard.

'I just want us to be friends now, forever./ Take this bowl of blackberries from the garden./ The sun has made them warm./ I picked them just for you.' Gay welcomes readers into his garden%E2%80%94for playful strolls, for the work of pruning and harvesting%E2%80%94to bear witness to a mind working its hardest to appreciate the world. He has also published an essay collection, The Book of Delights (2019). Catasauqua is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, settled in 1805 and chartered as a borough in 1853. He is the author of Be Holding (2020) Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award and a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award Bringing the Shovel Down (2011) and Against Which (2006). 'I am grateful,' he writes in the title poem. The 10 Gayest Cities In Pennsylvania For 2020. Fig trees are high on the list, along with friendship and the act of appreciation itself. Gay (Bringing the Shovel Down) drops a third collection that follows through on its title's promise: these simple, joyful poems read like a litany of what's good in the world.

Ross gay unabashed gratitude