JPC: Broad Street is in Philadelphia. Do you think of yourself as a Philadelphia poet, or in part a Philadelphia poet?

RG: Yeah, I think I do. I was brought up right outside of Philadelphia and have lived most of my adult life in Philadelphia, and whenever I'm away I still consider myself, basically, a Philadelphian. Right now I teach in Indiana, but I also, you know, live at Walt's house, my buddy who lives in Philly. [laughs] And a lot of my social concerns come [from there]—we'll see how this evolves over the years, but [Philadelphia] informs my work. Often I'm writing about, say, guns. And guns are a very American problem, but in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, where the legislature has their heads so far up their asses about things like guns, it feels like a very serious thing. It informs my work. I don't know that I'd have that same subject matter if I lived in . . . Minnesota. 

 

 

 

Ross Gay is heavily influenced by the city of Philadelphia, which can be seen in some of the themes of his work. In the relationship between the citizen and the city/nation, Gay sees violence resulting from fear. Philadelphia, an ethnically diverse city, incorporates topics such as race and immigration into Gay's poetry, and the concept of integrating people of other ethnicities or communities into the larger city/national community. In a city so fast and so complex, full of fear and movement and diversity, Ross Gay ultimately strives, and suggests his readers strive as well, to find and to cultivate compassion, even in the unlikeliest of places. 

 

 

 

JPC: When I read your poems and I think about the philosophy that emerges from them, there's this inter-related almost Buddhist celebration of the moment—a kind of Zen "just be here"—and then this almost pagan clinging to "just be here." I know you've done some reading in Buddhism and have an interest in it. Do you feel like that informs this process for you, of thinking through these issues? 

RG: Yeah, those texts matter to me. But all the interesting teachings on compassion have become more interesting to me lately, all of the concepts of compassion that run through all of the spiritual teachings. Like, say, compassion in Buddhism, or I don't know if it's called compassion in Christianity, or maybe in Judaism it's "the pity." I mean, I've been thinking a lot more about that lately. So, it's certainly true that I'm conscious of its informing my newer work, but that's always been something that's interested me, I think, though in these really complicated ways. It comes through in the work. The work's really rough a lot of times. There are these explorations of violence, but the explorations of violence want to—and this is a critical assessment of my own work from inside the work, which is not always the best way to do it—but I think they want to investigate violence or investigate harshness or stupidity so that we might understand better how to avoid that kind of thing. Which is called compassion. It’s called compassion when you understand people who do violence to you. That’s compassion, as well. So, yeah. Your question was basically "Does Buddhism affect me?" And I think that the main Buddhist tenets, yeah, they're amazing. They're great. [laughs]

JPC: I'm interested in your exploration of violence and how that's ultimately a gesture toward compassion. Is there some kind of moral imperative not to be too interested in the violence, or to balance it out by always thinking about what you're really doing with investigations of violence? In fully inhabiting the matter-of-factness of it, do you reinforce a sense of "yeah, it happened, get used to it"? Or do you fully inhabit it to the point where you crack it open and question? One of your poems for me that was on a fuzzy line between those was about a kid who kills a dog or considers killing a dog. A version of this poem got published in The American Poetry Review. Is it correct that you wrote two versions, one in which he actually kills the dog and one in which he recognizes the dog as a fellow being and doesn't kill him? And you chose to publish the one in which he doesn't kill the dog? 

RG: No, I didn't choose it; they chose it. I submitted both versions. 

 

Compassion is what leads Ross Gay to explore violence in his poetry. Not for violence's sake, but in the hopes of understanding how to avoid it or reveal what the violence is really about. According to Gay, it is usually motivated by fear or stupidity. Fighting against fear and stupidity would be compassionate. Understanding others who fail to fight against fear and stupidity would also be compassionate. We see both in Bringing the Shovel Down and Again.