Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

Ross Gay’s sense of gratitude is more than the singular state of being happy. This is evidenced by his title, which is not “Catalog of Gratitude” but “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.” The word “unabashed” cues the reader into the fact that the poem is dealing with more than superficial thankfulness. To be “unabashed” is to be unshrinking, fearless, and unflinching. As Gay tells interviewer David Naimon, most of us know that “things are unpleasant, or difficult, or whatever [but] there is an understanding that […] one of us is going to be dead and soon […] one of the practices of joy is to be walking with that understanding perpetually with us” (See: Further Reading & Resources). This is not just a poem about life’s glorious blooming, the goals we achieve, or the tasty fruit we consume but rather an embrace of a world in which death and its aftermath leave a “glacial shine” (Line 97) we must contend with as we are “falling down to cry” (Line 96). We must appreciate the world through the lens of pain and loss so that little kindnesses, like the touch of a loved one when you crumble in despair (Line 115) or helping an “old lady falling down” (Line 127), or “whisking a turtle off the road” (Line 147), are elevated in value.