INCITING JOY: ESSAYS

"BRILLIANT." --Ada Limón, U.S. poet laureate "A gift that's meant to be shared... inspires us to look beyond the miseries of our era to envision a more welcoming future, Gay... offer[s] a concept of joy akin to what Audre Lorde conceptualized in her essay 'Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.' Get yourself a copy...then gift yourself the great pleasure of giving it away."―The Washington Post "Another thoughtful, compassionate, and timely essay collection that focuses on the deeper meaning of joy. It's a tender and reflective collection that is sure to sit with you long after you finish."―BuzzFeed An intimate and electrifying collection of essays from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022 * The Rumpus Book Club Selection In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it. In "We Kin, " Gay thinks about the garden (es­pecially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come in) as a laboratory of mutual aid, in "Share Your Bucket, " he explores skateboard­ing's reclamation of public spaces, he considers the costs of masculinity in "Grief Suite", and in "Through My Tears I Saw, " he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love? Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive.