Ross Gay


Ross Gay is an American poet and professor. Along with a National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry, he is the author of the New York Times best-selling collection of essays, “The Book of Delights.” Gay compiled the book for a year’s worth of daily essays about things that delighted him, especially the small actions of individuals that create community. The Book of Delights, he said, “is about how do we attend to the ways that we make each other possible.”

Life

Ross Gay, a leading American poet, was born on August 1, 1974 in Youngstown, Ohio, but he grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania.
He received his B.A. from Lafayette College, his MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and his Ph.D. in American Literature from Temple University.
He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin. He is also an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press. He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project.
He has taught poetry, art and literature at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Montclair State University in New Jersey. He now teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and the low-residency MFA in poetry program at Drew University.
His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The American Poetry Review; Harvard Review; Columbia: A Journal of Poetry; Art, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry; and Atlanta Review. His poetry has also appeared in anthologies including From the Fishouse. His essays have appeared in The Paris Review.
His honors include being a Cave Canem Workshop fellow and a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Tuition Scholar, and he received a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.

Awards and honors

In anthology