Near the beginning of his new essay collection, INCITING JOY, Ross Gay recounts a moment after a poetry reading when a member of the audience approached him, tears in her eyes, and said, "I didn't know you could write about joy." In this book-length interrogation of the urgency of finding and creating joy --- no matter how elusive it might be --- Gay profoundly demonstrates that not only could he write about joy, perhaps we all should be thinking about it, pursuing it, creating it, inciting it in our lives.

"These essays are intellectually rigorous, informed by other writers and thinkers, as well as by musicians and athletes, and by Gay's family and friends."

In these essays, joy is not a simple thing. It's not sentimental or simple-minded. Instead it’s sometimes deliberate, such as when joy arrives despite death, humiliation, sorrow or grief (Gay writes about the inevitability of death in these pages nearly as much as he does about joy). At times, by contrast, joy almost takes on a life of its own, as in his essay about dancing. When a particular piece of music comes on the stereo, no matter the setting, joy courses through the body like something palpable and electric.

Above all, in the vision Gay is creating, joy is communal, a spectacle of generosity, solidarity and a sharing economy set in determined contrast to (or even in opposition of) capitalism. In those joyfully free dancing moments, joy comes from that shared bodily recognition of a favorite groove, the proximity of others, and the chaotic unity one finds on a dance floor.

The contagion of laughter is another good example, and Gay has a whole essay on that as well. He writes movingly, even urgently, about contributing to a shared project, whether building a communal orchard or sharing seeds, plants and gardening know-how with others in a community. There is also a generosity of spirit. In an essay about schooling, Gay outlines his philosophy of teaching (which, he confesses, he was only able to fully exercise once he got tenure, since part of it involves giving all his students As).

These essays are intellectually rigorous, informed by other writers and thinkers, as well as by musicians and athletes, and by Gay's family and friends. But it's also possible (and delightful) to see his poetic tendencies peeking through. His prose is constantly engaging with the ins and outs of language, trying to find just the right word to express a particular idea, and often circling back again and again to qualify, clarify or refine his meaning:

"And though it's sometimes nice to have the cards on the table and all that, being up-front, talking shop, pulling no punches, making no bones…actually, while it's sometimes nice to have the cards on the table, I kind of suspect these particular cards make bones in a way, and I will beg of you some patience as I try to spin out this metaphor."

Gay is also playful in his use of footnotes --- in an essay on masculinity and its relation to sports culture, whole parallel narratives play out in a series of footnotes --- and the kind of wordplay that delights poets and readers alike.