Reading “Thank you” by Ross Gay

Poetry Lunch S2E9

Reading “Thank you” by Ross Gay from Against Which, published by CavanKerry Press.

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A poem of quiet thanks, which I’m setting in this video (can you see the typo in the type I show??). 

I was lucky to hear this poem for the first time being read by Ross himself. He chose it for the closing poem of a benefit reading for the Pongo Poetry Project I attended, and it lodged sudden and sweet into me. I knew at once I needed to print it. The process of getting in touch and asking permission was sudden and sweet too (thanks in large part to Vaughan Fielder of the The Field Office), and here I am deep designing now! In record time, for me at least. Usually a year or more passes between a first encounter with a poem and a move toward working with it.

I love the reminders all through this poem about outside. About the ground. And clouds too, coming from within. Every time I read “Instead, curl your toes” I feel my toes instinctively curl in my boots and imagine them in grassy dirt.

Wishing you so many thanks, both given and received, and much time outside. Remember when you’re at a loss, and have nothing to say, “thank you” is always a good bet.

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Related print

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Links to purchase

Get the book: Against Which and the print: Thank You.