Ross gay seattle arts and lectures
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I wanted to realize joy as a fundamental aspect of our lives and practice it as a discipline.”
Read a full transcript of Gay’s reading here.
Season Two
Air Date April 9, 2020
Audio from lecture: Ross Gay
Recorded February 7, 2017
at McCaw Hall — Nesholm Family Lecture Hall
Seattle Arts and Lectures
Free Events
Past Event: Monday, February 6, 2023
At Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall
In Person & Online
Co-Presented by the Marguerite Casey Foundation
Poet Laureate
Join SAL and Marguerite Casey Foundation for a free event celebrating the publication of Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy, an intimate and electrifying collection of essays from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights.
Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. If you have opted out of receiving SAL emails, you will miss this important information—please email us at boxoffice@lectures.org and we will assist you.
Have a question for the speaker?
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It is not at all puzzling to me that joy is possible in the midst of difficulty.”
Besides being a disciple of joy, Ross Gay is a gardener, a painter, a professor, a basketball player, and a founding member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a free-fruit-for-all non-profit focused on food, justice, and joy. The program begins at 7:30 p.m.
In a recent episode of Krista Tippett’s podcast, On Being, poet Ross Gay said, “It is joy by which the labor that will make the life that I want, possible. Town Hall Seattle has a hearing loop system, so you can switch your T-coil hearing aid to telecoil to have the stage’s microphones transmitted directly to your hearing aids.
In his essays and poetry, Gay, he brings his overflowing kindness and relentless eye for details to community gardens, the lives of Black people, the artistry of basketball, and much more. For more details on accessibility features at Town Hall, click here.
Guide and service dogs are welcome.
All-gender restrooms are available.
We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders.
Carmen currently sits on the boards of Beyond12, Blue Ridge Labs, Children’s Defense Fund, as well as the San Francisco Federal Reserve’s Community Advisory Council, and Confluence’s Racial Equity Initiative Advisory Committee. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.
Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at Town Hall Seattle, which is fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns.
For more than 20 years, Carmen has worked with foundations, financial institutions, and nonprofits to improve the lives of working people across the United States. At this time, facial masks are encouraged but not required for entry, and proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test is no longer required. However, health and safety protocols are subject to change.
Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Monday-Thursday from 12:00pm – 5:00pm and Friday 10:00am – 1:00pm at 206.621.2230 ×10.
For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. Please RSVP in advance.
Q&A with Dr. Carmen Rojas.
The format for this evening will be a keynote and reading by Ross Gay, followed by a conversation with Dr.
Carmen Rojas.
Ross Gay is interested in joy.
Ross Gay wants to understand joy.
Ross Gay is curious about joy.
Ross Gay studies joy.
Something like that.
Ross Gay is the author of 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.
A limited number of student/educator tickets are available. Present on your mobile device or bring your printed ticket to the venue the night of the event.
For online attendance: If you requested a digital pass, SAL will send a pre-event reminder email with instructions to log in and access the online stream on day of the event.
She was the editor of How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230 x10, or select “Wheelchair accessible seat” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details.
Prior to joining Marguerite Casey Foundation, Dr. Carmen Rojas was the co-founder and former CEO of The Workers Lab, an innovation lab focused on making real the promises of safety, dignity, and mobility to all working people. The title poem in his most recent, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, is a long piece which, Gay told the Los Angeles Times, was begun as a “way to publicly imagine what it means for a person to be adamantly in love with his life.
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(PT) and will be available for viewing for a week after the event.SAL will also send an email the day of the event, containing the same information.