{"id":2447,"date":"2025-02-22T15:43:28","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T15:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2025-06-30T15:44:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T15:44:35","slug":"catalogue-of-unabashed-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/catalogue-of-unabashed-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/58762\/catalog-of-unabashed-gratitude\">Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Ross Gay<\/p>\n<h3>what it means<\/h3>\n<p class=\"\">Gratitude overall, even in the face of drug abuse, inner city rot, mental illness. Notice the world and be grateful. Notice your friends and be grateful. Notice the small kindnesses strangers do for each other and be grateful. There is so so much to be grateful for.<\/p>\n<h3>why I like it<\/h3>\n<p class=\"\">I heard Ross Gay read at the Seattle Arts &amp; Lectures series, and it was joy beginning to end. He grinned the whole time. He told us about his gratitude journal. He told us about the garden he helped build in the inner city. I just wanted to hang out with him the rest of my life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I mean how can you not get happy with a line like \u201cthe compost writhe giddy and lick its lips\u201d or this:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I can\u2019t stop<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">my gratitude, which includes, dear reader,<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">you, for staying here with me,<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">for moving your lips just so as I speak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Anyone offers me honey, I\u2019m there.\u00a0\u00a0And even though I did get tired reading this poem, how can I resist when he knows it too but can\u2019t help himself because he is so full of gratitude?<\/p>\n<h3>craft<\/h3>\n<p class=\"\">He is breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the reader.\u00a0\u00a0I still don\u2019t think this is a typical technique, but now, I really want to try it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">This is a really long poem, and one of the things I want to learn is how to write long poems.\u00a0\u00a0One way is long sentences. Notice that first stanza uses lots of fabulous diction to twist and turn its way through one question.\u00a0\u00a0He also uses those semi-colons for all their worth. I suspect that he kept the gratitude journal for years and then plumbed it for moments to put in this poem. I think he might have also kept a \u201cthings that make me miserable\u201d journal and found ways to be grateful for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude Ross Gay what it means Gratitude overall, even in the face of drug abuse, inner city rot, mental illness. Notice the world and be grateful. Notice your friends and be grateful. Notice the small kindnesses strangers do for each other and be grateful. There is so so much to be grateful&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2991,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}