Poet, essayist and Indiana University English professor Ross Gay shared his passions with local written word lovers as a headline speaker at this year’s virtual Authors and Artists Festival.
Hosted by Northfield-based creative and environmental organization NatureCulture, Gay kicked off the second day of the weekend-long event Sunday morning. He pulled from his New York Times best-selling essay collection “The Book of Delights,” as well as bits of poetry and his upcoming book “Inciting Joy,” to complement the festival’s “Writing the Land” theme. He read aloud excerpts particularly focused around motifs of happiness and connection to nature before transitioning to a question and answer session.
During his presentation, Gay stressed that his creative domain coincides largely with the festival’s theme.
“Today, because there was a theme of writing the Earth and stuff, I was like … I don’t really get out of writing the trees and stuff,” he said.
“The Book of Delights” was evidence of this as Gay shared his short essays. He prefaced his reading by explaining that the collection consists of journal entries inspired by mundane sources of delight he’d encountered going about everyday life. The book contains one entry for nearly every day of a full year, a goal Gay set for himself.
“Basically, one day I was having a moment of delight and I thought, ‘Oh, I should write a little essay about this!’” Gay said of the concept’s origin, adding that he felt the idea came from a sort of divine vision. “It came so clearly that I was like, ‘It wasn’t me. It was something else.’”
Gay’s smile rarely left his face as he read through his chosen entries. The essays often embraced a light-hearted comedic element as they juxtaposed the beauty of delight with typically unsavory things, such as animal droppings.
“I was so delighted at the turds,” he read in an essay titled “Scat,” observing how the pellets found by his shed were “bejeweled with mulberry seeds.”
Another essay, titled “An Abundance of Public Toilets,” similarly contrasted something inglorious with extreme majesty. The story, in which the narrator had relieved himself in his pants, likened his eventual usage of a portable toilet to a “confessional,” feeling “like (he) was a priest” as he stared upward through the screen roof of the stall.
Gay followed his reading from “The Book of Delights” with a reading of the intro of “Inciting Joy,” which he expects to release Oct. 24. This book, he explained, arose from his dealing with the concept of joy as he wrote his last three works. He further contextualized its necessity with observations of people doubting a writer’s capabilities to write poignantly about joy due to its supposed lack of seriousness. The opposite is true, he said, with the need to engage with joy stemming from this doubt.
“I think sorrow’s going to be just fine,” Gay said. “Sorrow doesn’t need an advocate.”
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-772-0261, ext. 261 or jmendoza@recorder.com.