bookish_by_elle's review
4.0
I don't think I'm super into poetry but I would love to read more Ross Gay
x24gee's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
gpapp's review
5.0
This book is not as well known as Gay's work on gratitude and delight, but it derserves to be. The book is an epic poem using as its structure a tribute to the basketball prowess of Julius Erving. This is deserved, but in Ross Gay's hands it becomes a metaphor for so much more.Even if you do not care much about basketball, give it a shot, this poem will win you over anyway.
thndrkat's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book length poem meanders through and evokes myriad aspects of American history and life, art, voyerism, Black life, sports, and other magic. While it sounds like a stream of consciousness, it is a carefully layered and nuanced expression of the nearly Inexpressable.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Slavery, Violence, and Racism
bev_reads_mysteries's review
5.0
Ross Gay is a beautiful human being who writes the most beautiful poetry. He uses words to float ideas as effortlessly as Dr. J's move which inspired this book-length poem. Ross holds the readers in the palm of his hand, balancing us carefully between the words and their meaning, the words and their unmeaning, the words and pictures they paint, the pictures that accompany the words and ideas that complement the pictures. He reminds us to be holding each other and in holding to see each other--to see where the other has been and where they are. Who the other is and who they have been...and who they and we can be. Ross makes us delight in language as he weaves language into magic right before our eyes.
But he also reminds us that in looking we witness the hurts as well as the triumphs...
" we do unwittingly when witnessing the unwitnessable"
and in the holding we should care for the hurting and be holding unholdable. He makes us realize that we are connected--we are all here to bear witness to the unwitnessable and hold what cannot be held. And to support one another in this way is the only be holding that is worthwhile.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting review. Thanks
But he also reminds us that in looking we witness the hurts as well as the triumphs...
" we do unwittingly when witnessing the unwitnessable"
and in the holding we should care for the hurting and be holding unholdable. He makes us realize that we are connected--we are all here to bear witness to the unwitnessable and hold what cannot be held. And to support one another in this way is the only be holding that is worthwhile.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting review. Thanks