Episode #043 Pulled Over In Short Hills, NJ 8:00am - Ross Gay

Connor and Jack delve into Ross Gay's powerhouse poem "Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ 8:00am. Jack breaks down how he arrived at his choice of this poem and the two discuss police violence, the inescapability of race in the United States, the ending of the film Inception, and the Green Book, a travel guide used by black families during the Jim Crow era.

Find out more about Ross Gay, here: http://www.rossgay.net/about

Find his books, here: http://www.rossgay.net/books

Find his poem about Eric Garner (mentioned in the pod), here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/small-needful-fact

Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking

Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking

You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [email protected].

Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM

By: Ross Gay

It’s the shivering. When rage grows

hot as an army of red ants and forces

the mind to quiet the body, the quakes

emerge, sometimes just the knees,

but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck

until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs

and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped

to squeeze words from my taut lips,

his eyes scanning my car’s insides, my eyes,

my license, and as I answer the questions

3, 4, 5 times, my jaw tight as a vice,

his hand massaging the gun butt, I

imagine things I don’t want to

and inside beg this to end

before the shiver catches my

hands, and he sees,

and something happens.