Joseph Ross

Yusef Komunyakaa’s Voice

Joseph Ross — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:04:01 +0000

I heard Yusef Komunyakaa read on Thursday night of this past week, at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The reading was part of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s O.B. Hardison Poetry series. It was a thoughtful, rich reading. I have read Komunyakaa’s poetry for years but had never heard him read. It’s always interesting to [...]

Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2012

Joseph Ross — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:15:03 +0000

Once again, the poets are coming to Washington, D.C. From March 22-25, 2012, Split This Rock Poetry Festival takes place here in Washington, D.C. This will be the third Split This Rock Poetry Festival, previous Festivals took place in 2008 and 2010. I have participated in all three of these Festivals and they are magnificent [...]

Chinua Achebe’s “Chike and the River”

Joseph Ross — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:41:39 +0000

Chinua Achebe is one of the world’s literary treasures. His novels and short stories have moved and taught us for decades. Recently, I revisited one of his stories, that I read many years ago in high school. It moved me again, though in more nuanced ways. Chike and the River is one of those rare, [...]

Melanie Henderson’s ELEGIES for NEW YORK AVENUE

Joseph Ross — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:59:18 +0000

Melanie Henderson’s new book, Elegies for New York Avenue turns remembering into a fine art. Winner of the 2011 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, the poems in this book are moving, generous tributes to the human skill of remembering. New York Avenue, like many places in Washington, D.C. is at once changing, and at the [...]

Dr. King’s “Ten Commandments”

Joseph Ross — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:23:12 +0000

When we think of the skills required in political movements, we often consider shrewdness, a willingness to destroy the adversary, and clear communication as the essentials. It’s useful to explore what Dr. King expected, and required, of those who would join his protest movement. In his book, Why We Can’t Wait, which is the story [...]

“abu ghraib arias” by Philip Metres

Joseph Ross — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:24:08 +0000

abu ahraib arias by Philip Metres is as disconcerting as it is beautiful. Metres writes in the book’s Afterword that the poem “began out of the vertiginous sense of being named but silenced as an Arab American.” In this small book of 22 pages, Metres captures both the horror of torture and its accompanying silence. [...]

Creative Quiet at Work

Joseph Ross — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:26:12 +0000

These days just after Christmas, the Winter Solstice, and the New Year, offer many of us some time to rest and gather before going back to our various works. Living so much of my life on the academic calendar, I’ve come to savor and appreciate these breaks in the routine of school. I’ve just had [...]

Welcome

Joseph Ross — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:00:48 +0000

Hi Friends & Readers: As you can see, JosephRoss.net has received (and is still receiving) a bit of a new look. As we begin 2012, I wanted the site to get a fresh face, including the capacity for reader comments and connections to other social media. The blog section of the site will still be [...]

Remembering David Kato

Joseph Ross — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:03:20 +0000

It is nearly a year since Ugandan Gay rights activist, David Kato was murdered. He was killed in his own home, by a man wielding a hammer, on January 26, 2011. David Kato was Uganda’s most public gay rights activists and the director of Sexual Minorities Uganda. His murder followed a local newspaper article with [...]

Jake Adam York’s “A Murmuration of Starlings” Sings

Joseph Ross — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:04:49 +0000

This collection of poems is as haunting as it is beautiful. Jake Adam York brings the elegy to full maturity in these poems, the second book in a series to elegize the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement. “A Murmuration of Starlings” stands as a monument to many who died in the Civil Rights struggle, [...]