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Poet Ross Gay's collection of essays--"essayettes" he calls them--grew out of a year-long project to record daily delights. The process helped him develop his "delight radar" and the belief that delight grows when shared; what he shares here with the reader is a wonderful catalog of small delights that in his hands grow into something more. Flowers gathered on a spring walk home, a high-five from a stranger, the joy of blowing something off, eating Botan Rice Candy, the efficiency of a scythe in the garden, the unexpected tenderness of a tap from a flight attendant, the phrases "not fuh nuttin" and "whoop-de-doo", his father weeping at the movie "Ghost," a lavender infinity scarf and masculinity, carrying a tomato seedling on a plane. Over the year he comes back to common themes of family, public space, dreams, gardening, music, politics, and kindness. He also meditates on racism, and how being a black man in America, in a culture that often wants to conflate blackness and suffering, the simple act of writing "a book of black delight" becomes a delight in itself.
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Alicia recommends
08/01/2020
Boulder Library
adult nonfiction,
essays,
.Alicia's reviews,
happiness,
lived experiences,
racism,
Black