- In Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Gay writes, "I can't stop my gratitude, / Which includes, dear reader, / You, for staying here with me, / For moving your lips just so as I speak. / Here is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it." (p. 86) In what specific ways do you show gratitude in your day to day life? How do you prefer others to express gratitude for you?
- Gay takes an approach where instead of directly labeling emotions, he describes the impact that emotions have on the physical being of a person. What do you think fuels this choice?
- In his writings, Gay directly addresses the readers using words like "you" and "friend." Do you think his word choice affects your perception of his works? What do you think influences him to take this approach?
- The poems in Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude are largely written in free verse, rather than a more rigid poetic mode. But while some poems, like “Weeping” or “The Opening” favor long, Whitmanesque lines—some reaching all the way to the edge of the page—others are written with short, clipped lines of only a few words, like “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt” or “Wedding Poem.” Do these poems feel different as you read them?
- Some of the gratitudes described in this book seem to conflict with the ways we’re taught to be thankful and the things we’re taught to be thankful for. For example, Gay writes, “...thank you for taking my father / a few years after his own father went down…thank you / for leaving and for coming back…” (p. 84) Does being grateful for loss or hardship change that event in some way? Does it change us?
- In poems like “Weeping,” Gay describes things by describing what they are not: “...Emma must have flown away for good, judging / by the not brutal silence at breakfast…” (p. 43). He does this again in “Ending the Estrangement,” where he writes: “it felt to me / not like what I thought it felt like / to her…” (p. 59). These descriptions expand the possibilities of what a thing is. What are some other things that can best be described by identifying what they are not?
- In Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Gay recounts a dream in which a robin on a branch growing into his window speaks to him: “"it said so in a human voice, / "Bellow forth"— / And who among us could ignore such odd / And precise counsel?" (p. 82-83) What might Gay be offering in this poem about the lessons that we can learn from the natural world? Are there other moments in the collection where something in nature provides a lesson or “counsel”? Can you think of a time in your own life when an element of nature taught you an important lesson?
- In the poem "To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian,” Gay writes about picking figs alongside strangers at an intersection in his town. The poem closes with the lines, "we are feeding each other / From a tree / At the corner of Christian and 9th / Strangers maybe / Never again" (p. 6). What place or places in your own neighborhood, towns, or communities bring people together by chance in meaningful ways? What are the qualities of that place or those places?
- Gay seems to be intent on making himself vulnerable in these poems. He shares insecurities, fears, and mistakes; he apologizes to readers; he seems to allow his poems, sometimes, to “fail.” Are there moments of vulnerability in the book that stood out to you, or that caught you off guard? Why do you think vulnerability is so important to Gay?
These discussion questions were taken from National Endowment for the Arts,
