Having delighted the City of Asylum community with readings in 2019 and 2020, prize-winning poet and essayist Ross Gay returns to our stage to share his newly released collection of essays, Inciting Joy. Ross is joined in conversation by Damon Young.

In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, Ross considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. How can we practice recognizing that fragile yet integral connection between all of us? How should we expand it?

Ross thinks about the community garden as a laboratory for mutual aid in “We Kin”; explores skateboarding’s reclamation of public space in “Share Your Bucket”; and in “Through My Tears I Saw,” recognizes what was healed in caring for his dying father. Full of energy, curiosity, and compassion, Inciting Joy is essential reading from one of our most brilliant writers.

Ross Gay is the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights as well as four collections of poetry: Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, Be Holding (Winner, PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (Winner, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award). He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. Ross has been awarded fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.

Pick up your own copy of Inciting Joy at City of Asylum Bookstore.

Ross Gay: Inciting Joy