This prestigious award is granted annually by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or creative ability in the arts. There are roughly 3,000 applications each year, but only around 175 fellowships awarded, indicating the extraordinariness of the awardees.
Poet Ross Gay joined the Creative Writing faculty at Indiana University's College of Arts and Sciences in 2007. His poems have been published in numerous magazines and journals, in addition to being widely anthologized.
His books include:
- Against Which
- Bringing the Shovel Down
- Be Holding
- Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
- The Book of Delights: Essays
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude was the winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Catalog was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry.
He is the Ruth Lilly Chair in Poetry at Indiana University.