Lyric Cartography
CLASS UPDATE: Unfortunately, Patrick Rosal is no longer able to co-instruct this class. Ross Gay will be teaching the full session and it will continue as scheduled.
In this generative workshop, we will be doing a series of exercises designed to help us excavate, wander around in and through, or make more precise our questions about actual places. We might call this something like lyric cartography, or it might be something like lyric biography (of a place). One way or another, we will dream into these places together, guided by these exercises. Be prepared to write (and draw, etc.), and please be prepared to share and listen.
Ross Gay
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem, Be Holding, was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in September of 2020. His collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019.
Ross is also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook "Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens," in addition to being co-author, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, of the chapbook, "River." He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin', in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He also works on The Tenderness Project with Shayla Lawson and Essence London. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.
