The Noticing Muscle

In this episode, we listen in on a conversation between poet and essayist Ross Gay and Terrain.org poetry editor Derek Sheffield. As Ross Gay’s biography points out: “Ross Gay is interested in joy. Ross Gay wants to understand joy. Ross Gay is curious about joy.” Ross gay, it turns out, is curious and interested in just about everything, but humble about his ability to understand it. In fact, he’s in love with not knowing, which allows for change and, yes, “flabbergastment.” Along with living the questions and inciting joy, though, Ross Gay centers what he calls, “the noticing muscle.” This muscle, when strengthened, “inclines us to care for each other in systems of distrust and brutalization.” Listen to Ross Gay and Derek Sheffield take a deep dive into the workings of poetry (“the longer I study it, the more I realize I don’t know how I’m doing this”), what it’s like to witness a bee orgy (“I don’t know shit”), and why you should consider turning toward your death (“to not consider our dying and our living the same thing is in impediment to joy”). 

Additional poetry in this episode: 

• “At First Scent of Daylight” by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
• “On NPR This Afternoon” by Jillian Hanson
• “Duplex II” by Camille Newsom

About Ross Gay
The most recent book by Ross Gay is The Book of (More) Delights (Algonquin Books, 2023), the collection that occasioned this interview. His first Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of another book of essays, Inciting Joy (Algonquin Books, 2022), and four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Read the full interview with Derek Sheffield.