Inciting Joy: Essays

From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes an intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection.

In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it.

Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity.

In fact, it just might help us survive. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?

“Brilliant. Inciting Joy is a book that will break your heart.” —Ada Limón, US poet laureate

“A gift that’s meant to be shared.” —The Washington Post

“It’s impossible to read [these essays] without feeling a shift in your awareness of joy and its unexpected possibilities.” -The Boston Globe  

Winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Memoir/ Nonfiction
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