A small needful fact ross gay analysis

And all those likes. Medical examiners ruled the death a homicide. Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, which means, perhaps, that with his very large hands, perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, continue to do what such plants do, like house and feed small and necessary creatures, like being pleasant to touch and smell, like converting sunlight into food, like making it easier for us to breathe.

This is a poem made of information inflected by verbal tics, by hemmings and hawings, in all likelihoodsand perhapses. We know Ross Gay as a poet who does not exclude uplift from his poems his third book is called Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitudeand who is unabashed about finding positivity in unusual places his most recent book, of brief essays, is The Book of Delights.

Eric Garner worked for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, using his very large hands to plant things gently. Not personal ones. Ross Gay on Robert Hayden — Gay and other poets discuss Robert Hayden's "Frederick Douglass," a poem that may have helped inspire "A Small Needful Fact." Poetry and Anti-Racism — Recent collections that examine America, racism, and systemic injustice.

His writing nonetheless often addresses serious political, psychologically fraught issues. What do plants do? Without being intimately biographical, the poem refuses to allow the man to be subsumed into the facts of his death, or into public opinion about his death.

On Ross Gay 39

Eric Garner died, age 43, on Staten Islandin Julyafter a police officer put him in a chokehold. After he lost consciousness, officers turned him on his side to ease his breathing. With it, Gay characterizes his speaker as uncertain and uncomfortable.

He had six kids, including, at the time of his death, a three-month old child, and three grandkids. A Small Needful Fact study guide contains a biography of Ross Gay, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

The likes take us nowhere, and nothing can ever change again for Eric Garner—he can go nowhere now.

A Small Needful Fact

What we see at the end is just a man who unlike us is no longer breathing. When is dispassion in a poem more passionate than heat? They set about arresting him. ‘A Small Needful Fact’ by Ross Gay is a powerful poem that presents an image of hope and beauty after a loss.

An ambulance arrived seven minutes later. “A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay is a single-sentence poem that begins with the titular fact: Eric Garner did some work in the Parks and Recreation Horticultural Department. “A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay: A Critical Analysis “A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay, first published in the collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, is a poignant exploration of grief, loss, and resilience.

When flatness is more vivid than vigorously-expressed emotion? He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital about an hour later. Big men often have big hands, and people who deal with plants probably do need to be capable of gentleness.

The poem addresses the legacy of Eric Garner and how one might still find his presence in the world. To produce something politically and emotionally invested that also invests in gratitude, delight and happiness requires a delicate sort of irony.

In fact, all this hesitating and hedging makes the poem. Plants, which can live for years after one plants them, feed small and necessary creatures, are pleasant touch and smell, convert sunlight into food and make it easier for humans—that is, all of us—to breathe.

Seven of them in all, two of those inside the word likelihood which maybe contains a suggestive nearness to the word livelihood and one inside the word likely.