Joseph Ross

The Gifts of Teaching

Joseph Ross — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:37:33 +0000

It’s hard to believe this, but I just completed my twenty-fourth year of teaching. Fourteen of those years I spent in high school classrooms and ten in college classes. These years include eight years teaching in Notre Dame’s Freshman Writing Program, ten years directing the Writing Center and teaching at Carroll High School in Washington, [...]

Alley Ball

Joseph Ross — Sun, 26 May 2013 17:58:05 +0000

Lately, I’ve been writing poems about places from my youth. Something a few weeks ago brought back the memories of the basketball court in the alley behind my house as a boy. I think I can partly blame poet, friend and blogger Brian Gilmore for this. (Check his blog, by the way, Chocolate City Review) [...]

“I Am A Man” Photo Comes to Washington, D.C.

Joseph Ross — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:55:50 +0000

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis twice in 1968, to assist the city’s striking sanitation workers. On his first visit, a demonstration turned violent and he vowed to return to help them do it right. Tragically, on his second visit, he was killed. The campaign in Memphis became known as the “I Am [...]

What The Folger Means

Joseph Ross — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:06:17 +0000

When I was a senior in high school, a long time ago, in Southern California, I had an English class in a basement classroom. It was a typing classroom meaning the desks were metal with huge electric typewriters taking up nearly the whole desk surface. There was just enough room for a stand-up typing book [...]

Age, Youth, Love, & Loss in Amy Herzog’s “4000 Miles”

Joseph Ross — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:57:10 +0000

“The worst thing about getting old– is losing your words.” Tana Hicken as Vera, laments to her grandson, Leo, this particular sadness about aging. Amy Herzog’s play “4000 Miles” enters the space between a grandmother, presumably in her 70s or 80s, and her 20-something grandson. The Studio Theater has done a remarkable production of this [...]

Brian Gilmore’s “Chocolate City Review”

Joseph Ross — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:18:16 +0000

We live in a world of a zillion blogs. Some rant, some merely crank out one opinion atop another. But the good ones, the truly reflective and insightful ones, stand out for their careful thinking, good writing, and humble assertions. Brian Gilmore’s “Chocolate City Review” has all this. It’s among the best blogs I know. Brian [...]

45 Years After Dr. Martin Luther King: How Are We Doing?

Joseph Ross — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:01:19 +0000

Forty-five years ago today, Dr. King was back in Memphis. He had been in the city weeks before to support the city’s black sanitation workers in their “I am a man” campaign. The black sanitation workers were on strike against the city’s unequal pay practices; they were paid less than their white counterparts doing the [...]

April Fools’ Day – Everyone’s Holiday

Joseph Ross — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:09:15 +0000

While some don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, Passover or an Eid, April Fools’ Day is one for us all. If we’re honest, we have to admit we are all, at some point, very foolish people. We make decisions based on fleeting desires. We give in to ease and make choices which do not relfect our [...]

Remembering Chinua Achebe – Part 1: Reflections by Chris Abani

Joseph Ross — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:49:51 +0000

It is hard to imagine a world without Chinua Achebe. So, over the next couple of weeks, I will post some reflections here on the life, work, and death of this essential writer, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. His death on March 21, 2013, last week, in Boston, is an enormous loss to the world of [...]

Picasso, Windows, and Hope

Joseph Ross — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 19:27:26 +0000

On this Good Friday, 2013, when North Korea threatens the world with bluster beyond its means, when Syria lurches into a second year of war, and countless other human failures seem to overtake us, I’m drawn to Pablo Picasso and one of his paintings which always gives me hope. Picasso’s “Studio (Pigeons)” painted in 1957, [...]