November Reading; “Joyful Tidings”

After about 6 months of sprinting, I’m finally beginning to catch my breath and reflect on the (questionable) feat of launching two shows for the Philadelphia Fringe which segued immediately into a New York run. These shows are by no means over (Philadelphia folks, I’ve got some early December treats coming your way), and in fact Undersigned is still happening in New York City (public times are now available for November 15th/16th). Still, I’ve carved out a little space these past weeks to breath before the holiday onslaught, and thus had the rare treat of attending a book signing for one of my favorite poets in the world: Ross Gay.

Turns out, the book he was signing was his new book - which means I’ve got a book that’s jumped to the very front of my “to read” shelf - and you’re all coming along.

“Inciting Joy”

Ross Gay

Ross Gay’s 2019 work The Book of Delights came to me as a gift - which sounds like unforgiveably flowery prose, and is, but is also just factually true, and since what is true happens to be a convincing excuse to be a bit florid, I’ll let myself off easy this time. This is one of a few books I don’t just recommend—I purchase this book and fling it at you. The quotidian format of writing about “one delight a day” is approachable and direct, but the depths of curiosity and wonder and joy Gay explores are staggering, and the shades of nuance he catches allow this book to slide from delight to grief to dismay and back to awe. These emotional journeys crafted out of everyday ingredients resonated so much with me, and with the work I’ve been exploring for a long time. When testing The Telelibrary, I considered Gay’s essays to be a tonal center — undeniably right for whatever was going on there—around which I tried to curate and build a broader catalog.

I know it’s easy to dismiss books with titles like these. We are so often taught that joy is trivial, silly, indulgent, or trite. But I hold a near religious zeal that each of us is obliged to “take our pleasure seriously,” and I can think of no better prophet of the Big Matter of Small Pleasures that Ross Gay. You can read an interview Gay did in Bomb Magazine about the essential connections between grief, loss and joy — or you could just try some of his work for yourself.

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Content Warning: we’re going deep on feelings here, and hitting a lot of heavy themes, death and suicide among them. At work? Maybe come back later tonight. Maybe give yourself 20 minutes, locked in a single stall bathroom. You don’t have to cry if you choose to read these. You don’t even have to feel anything at all. But goddamn if it doesn’t help sometimes when you do.

“Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude"

Ross Gay, with Bon Iver

I don’t know how to prepare or introduce you to this poem other than to say that I open this video every 6 months or so to have a good weep. That’s not to say you will, or even that you have to. Maybe you won’t — maybe you won’t finish this (after all, it’s nearly 15 minutes long). You may even be in the camp that soundtracks are cynical bid to tell an audience how to feel.

What I’ll say is that backing music, or any art, really, at its best, is not a command but an invitation. And that if you choose to save 15 minutes for yourself at some point this week, and to put this video in them, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

“To the Young Who Want to Die / “Sorrow is Not My Name””

By Gwendolyn Brooks, and Ross Gay, Respectively

One of my favorite Ross Gay poems was written in response to one of my favorite Gwendolyn Brooks poems - though even as I write that, I feel that, “favorite” is a poor word. It’s more true to say that I’ve needed both of these poems a few times in my life, for myself and for others. And it’s true to say the glass I keep them behind has been recently broken, and will no doubt be broken again. Robert Frost once described encountering “the right poem” as receiving “an immortal wound;” I think it’s gentler to think of a poem being something you can keep on the shelf, and need another day.

~

Thanks for sticking with a heavier reading list this month - here’s a little moment of zen for those still here: I did the strange and stood in line for a signing, bringing my copy of “Book of Delights,” and told Ross Gay about the Telelibrary. In exchange for indulging in exuberance, the universe (or maybe just Ross) gave me this:

Thanks.

- Yannick Trapman-O’Brien