Gay's third collection is a sustained act of the thing the title promises: a gratitude so thorough it includes grief, hardship, and loss within its embrace. The title poem is a 22-page meditation on a fig tree and everything attached to it. National Book Award finalist, Pulitzer finalist. Gay is the poet who has most completely made joy a serious literary subject. Not easy joy, not ignorant joy, but joy that knows what it costs and chooses itself anyway.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.