Ross Gay is a celebrated poet and essayist. He is also a basketball player and gardener, lover of orchards, bees, and pick-up games. I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to visit with Ross and explore the myriad clusters of revelation and grace I have encountered in his work.
I have been talking with Dona Nelson and looking and thinking about their work for 26 years. Our marathon-length phone conversations leave my sketchbooks filled with maps of dashes, phrases, doodles and names of writers and artists that look like debris after a tornado. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to converse publicly with one of the most significant American painters working today.
Dylan Collier painted and gave me this painting in 2000, or maybe in 2002, before I left Philly for New Orleans. He died some years later. My son is named after him.
