Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude 

by Ross Gay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection of poetry was darker and more complex than the title had led me to expect. These verses find the beautiful in the darkness of life in a way that is both beautiful and real. The poet is talking to the reader from within the poems in a way that I had not come across before (though I don't read enough poetry to know if it is actually unique).

I swore when I got into this poem I would convert
this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics

I can sometimes make with these scribbled artifacts
of our desolation. I can't even make a metaphor

of my reflection upside down and barely visible
in the spoon. I wish one single thing made sense.

To which I say: Oh get over yourself.
That's not the point.

     --from "spoon"

My favorites in this collection were "burial" and "ode to the puritan in me". Gay has published two previous collections of verse which I look forward to reading.