The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

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66Book ReviewJALEN EUTSEYBe HoldingRoss GayUniversity of Pittsburgh Press, 2020ISBN : 9780822966234Ross Gay's fourth book of poetry, Be Holding, is ostensibly a book-length rumination on Dr. J (Julius Erving)and his unforgettable scoop-shot in the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, but we quicklyfind out it's about so much more. Gay uses Erving's baseline scoop as the inciting incident for all of hischaracteristic explorations of gratitude and delight pulled through a tunnel of grief. It would be fair toargue that Gay can find delight almost anywhere, but one of the many geniuses of this work is the fact thatit refuses to shy away from the brutal realities that make that hard-won gratitude so vital. GayTHE UNDER REVIEW
67interweaves the atrocities of slavery into a description of the book’s cover photo, a Farm SecurityAdministration photograph published in 1941 and shot by Jack Delano, which depicts a Black woman anda young boy standing in a doorway: and her muscled forearms are fortressedacross the diagonal striped patternof her dress which toward the knee has two holes,and suddenly like that her dress becomesa map of the trades,the holes of the bodiesof islands cast in the windcombed sea,In the acknowledgements, Gay sites Amiri Baraka’s “An Agony As Now” and a separate, unpublished quoteof Baraka’s as influences on Be Holding: “At the bottom of the Atlantic ocean there’s a railroad of humanbones.” Be holding is a book length balancing act of the unbelievably painful and the soaring of delight andcare. The commodification of Black people is at the heart of the book and given its focus on historicalphotographs and the footage of Dr. J’s move, Be Holding becomes both a sharp critique of the racial gaze/our practice of witnessing, and a reminder of the still rippling effects of the very first commodification ofBlack life. Gay indicts one example of reckless witnessing by examining Stanley Forman’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Marlborough Street Fire photograph, which depicts a Black woman and a young Black girlplummeting from a collapsed fire escape. He writes:—you have seen, I hope—for in the photograph neither are they namedgiven as the photograph’s two titlesare Marlborough Street Fireand Fire Escape Collapse,and imply no violence or horror upon these two people,Gay blows up one moment in history—The Doctor’s shot—taking a magnifying glass to all its pixelatedcorners, stretching and melding that moment with nearly all of history. Movement like this makestransitions a necessary precarity, but Gay manages it over and over with a sedated precision. Early in thebook he seamlessly slips out of a description of the flying Igbo myth and into a description of Dr. J’s flightin the finals: they shake loose and tumble from their ankles and wristserasing through the sky and into the sealike names disappearing from a ledger,hovering there like a schoolISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021
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ISSUE 4SUMMER 2021
Page 4 and 5:
TABLE OF CONTENTSPOETRYA Fable Abou
Page 6 and 7:
6LETTER FROM THE EDITORSMuscle Memo
Page 8 and 9:
8 SHAPIROdad’s jaundice complexio
Page 10 and 11:
10adjust to new requirements. More
Page 12 and 13:
12Learning to DunkCHRIS ABBATEI gua
Page 14 and 15:
14Take OneERIN HILLA spindly-legged
Page 16 and 17: 16even if it didn’t square with t
Page 18 and 19: 18Church SoftballRYAN HARPERThose n
Page 20 and 21: 20Eye of the StormBRETT BIEBELThis
Page 22 and 23: 22A Real HumdingerKEITH BUZZARD “
Page 24 and 25: 24“Not sure how good an idea that
Page 26 and 27: 26 BUZZARD“Well, Paul, I don’t
Page 28 and 29: 28DavidANDREW GENTMichelangelo’s
Page 30 and 31: 30Bring on the boos, Ryan thought a
Page 32 and 33: 32“Christ, next time we gotta mak
Page 34 and 35: 34“Actually, it’s more like one
Page 36 and 37: 36 ERWINThe umpire started back for
Page 38 and 39: 38My serve. I was pretty good at it
Page 40 and 41: 40I remembered this incident just b
Page 42 and 43: 42At Logan Avenue, I turned left, h
Page 44 and 45: 44 BELDENMy mother glanced over and
Page 46 and 47: 46 ELPHICKbeen in a real fight in a
Page 48 and 49: 48Interview with Maya WashingtonTER
Page 50 and 51: 50TH: You mention in the beginning
Page 52 and 53: 52performance poet, who is performi
Page 54 and 55: 54known stories in college football
Page 56 and 57: 56Racing DadKIMBERLY J. BROWNI tell
Page 58 and 59: 58 TAYLORDetroit Tigers World Serie
Page 60 and 61: 60When I was planning my trip, I br
Page 62 and 63: 62The RunnerMORROW DOWDLESleep’s
Page 64 and 65: 64Bonus DaysAMY ZARANEKIn basketbal
Page 68 and 69: 68looking down at us,watching,as Do
Page 70 and 71: 70 CONTRIBUTOR NOTESCONTRIBUTOR NOT
Page 72 and 73: 72 CONTRIBUTOR NOTESALEX WELLS SHAP
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The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

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