Bringing down the Shovel - Ross Gay

I am exhilarated by the constant theme of violence and human fragility in Ross Gay’s poem in “Bringing down the Shovel.” Many of his poems address a wider consciousness of the world as well as individual stories that shield light on pity, rage, terror, and grief in order bring the realities of these emotions embedded into the human condition. Gay also employs a variety of voices in his subjects that bring to life the multifaceted emblems of our sentiments.  Love, You Got Me Good is especially condescending in the juxtaposition “couples names” and the descriptions of how they make the subject feel. One of my favorite lines form the poem is “When I dream of you / I hear footsteps on my bones” (line 5,6). I like the utter morbidity of this allegory and the variety meanings it may suggest. My interpretation is that when he thinks of this person, he hears him/her/it crunching on death. In this instance, there is either something really wrong with him or something not quite right about the third person.