Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

Gay is well-versed in a wide range of poets’ work and craft, which is knowledge he drew on for “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.” His admiration for other poets is specifically mentioned in his interview with Nicole Sealy where Gay notes how he was influenced by a wide number of poets while constructing “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” (See: Further Reading & Resources). He carried a poem by Mary Ruefle around while writing the poem and read Eileen Myles’s work “quite a bit” at the time. Gay also notes the inspiration he got from the odes of Spanish poet Pablo Neruda as well as Virgil’s The Georgics, poems which detail man’s struggles with the natural world and reference farm management, beekeeping, the raising of animals, and cultivation of plants in ancient Rome. All of these subjects also appear in Gay’s poem in much more contemporary settings. Other influences include his former teachers like Gerald Stern and Thomas Lux as well as his personal friends, poets Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Patrick Rosal. He mentions Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, whose inspiration includes their work, but also their founding of Cave Canem, a national organization that specializes in the support of African-American poets. The organization gave Gay a fellowship from 2003-2009.