a garden of delights, with writer ross gay

THE WORDS joy and delight figure prominently in writer Ross Gay‘s work, and so do moments he spends in his garden and descriptions of his relationship to plants. Now is that a coincidence that the garden is a main character in his books, books with the titles “Inciting Joy” and “The Book of Delights” and the latest, “The Book of (More) Delights”?

As a longtime gardener who finds both joy and delight in my life outdoors, I don’t think so. It’s no surprise to me at all that from garlic-and-sweet-potato harvest times or devouring fresh figs from a friend’s tree, Ross Gay finds himself positively delighted.

I wanted you to meet him and hear about his work and learn what he’s up to in his Indiana garden.

Ross Gay’s four books of poetry and three of essays have won him much praise. He teaches writing at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he also gardens. (Above, self-sown sunflowers and castor bean in his garden.)

Plus: Enter to win a copy of “The Book of (More) Delights” (affiliate link) by commenting in the box near the bottom of the page.

Read along as you listen to the Sept. 25, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

a garden of delights, with ross gay

Margaret Roach: It’s that time of the season, Ross, I don’t know.

Ross Gay: Yeah, yeah.

Margaret: The harvest time; the cleanup still lies ahead and oh, boy. Got to keep going, yeah.

Ross: Yeah, yeah.

Margaret: And we recently did a “New York Times” column together, which was really fun. So I was so glad to get to meet you. And so since I started reading your books and got to talk to you for that story, I