Waterfall of Thanks, by Gray Davidson Carroll

Poetry, chapbook, 64 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

"Gray's work carries with it an anointing, and yet burdensome task of being an outspoken observer of life, sex, death, and all the in-betweens. Their voice promises and delivers the unexpected tradition of creative performance, which is incomparably brave and generous of a body that is in literal bloom. I find Gray's poetry to carry the potential solutions many writers, whether in or outside of the LGBTQIA community, so intrinsically thirst after - solutions for being benevolent after discovery, heartbreak, grief, solutions for becoming and unbecoming. All of these solutions weave a voice unapologetic, because who really needs to harvest fire? Their credibility on the subjects are buried in the bones, catalyzing them beyond expert and deeming them more so, as an immortal agent of political and cultural change, these are words that survive, as they have survived, poems that don't die, as Virgina Woolf stated, 'for great poets do not die.' Gray confirms in their work that poetry is still being defined in climate, spirit, and time - there are endless moments in their writing where it becomes devotional prayer, a confessionalist revival begging the reader to go deeper inside themselves to rest, reset, remember... I am moved to always sit, as I am sitting now, while reading Gray's work. This writing, often reminding me of Baldwin... or Vuong... both writers without restriction between poetry and creative non-fiction, is what we need to ponder and nestle in our laps, it is work that teaches without the notion of feeling like you are being taught, a sermonous voice crying out to be heard in the noise."

—Starr Davis, nominee for the Pushcart Prize in poetry and creative nonfiction

"Please join me in welcoming Gray Davidson Carroll’s wonderful first book, WATERFALL OF THANKS, and let’s approach it with the same gratitude they bring to a surprising number of objects and phenomena: “the ice…for reminding me/ about melting, about change,” or life-affirming “switchbacks and dry desert/ instead of the resort and spa,” or their mother’s awakening to spring through “nettle & white bean/ kale and kielbasa.” Perhaps Davidson Carroll’s greatest and most visionary expression of gratitude is reserved for “Trans Orthodoxy,” in which “a small boy in a skirt/ weaves a crown/ out of goldenrod/ in the middle of a field/ and no one asks him/ why he wants to be a princess/…and who doesn’t want/ to feel like royalty.” Or perhaps that honor goes to the title poem, which celebrates the many beautiful and sometimes troubled figures populating Davidson Carroll’s vividly realized life and work. Open this book and see for yourself."

—John Hennessy, author of CONEY ISLAND PILGRIMS

"With grace and precision, Gray Davidson Carroll illuminates layers that live large but below the surface. These poems flow, and then invite halt as truth emerges - like light through a crack - from vivid images and caring, exhilarating choreography of words. Like sunlight, Gray makes poetry sing."

—Dr. Jill Sonke, Director of Research, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine

Gray Davidson Carroll is a writer, dancer, singer, activist, cold water plunger and hot chocolate connoisseur hailing from the beautiful nowhere land of western Massachusetts. They have a Masters Degree in Community Health Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and are currently exploring the capacity of poetry to decrease social isolation and social bonding among transgender and gender-diverse youth. They can typically be found drinking copious amounts of coffee at all hours of the day, or pedaling a bicycle down forgotten backroads while singing at the top of their lungs.