CRUSHED & CROWNED is now available! You can purchase it from FlowerSong Press! Or you can get it here from Amazon. You can also order it from Bookshop.org here. I am all gratitude to FlowerSong Press and Edward Vidaurre!
You can find links for my other four poetry collections here: Raising King, 2020, Ache, 2017, Gospel of Dust, 2013, Meeting Bone Man, 2012
Reviews and more are below on this page.
Raising King is available now! Get it from Small Press Distribution, HERE, and from Bookshop.org HERE, Powell’s HERE, or Amazon, HERE. Amazon is probably the fastest way to get it. Check out the Discussion Guide and reviews below.
Here is the Raising King Discussion and Writing Guide. You can download it below for free.
Reviews of Raising King
Here is Philip C. Kolin’s review in Christian Century, a magazine that published Dr. King several times during his lifetime: Raising King is “…a major achievement…a protest march in poems.” Read the whole review here: “Dr. King’s Voice in Verse.”
Here is a review of Raising King by Kristin Kowalski-Ferragut. Scroll down to the second of the four brief reviews here. Kristin is a Maryland poet and this review was posted on her blog in May, 2023. Please have a read!
Here is a wonderful review of Raising King by Holly Bowers, on the Little Patuxent Review website!
Vox Populi has a terrific review of Raising King written by poet, Kathleen O’Toole, titled “For Such a Time as This.”
Raising King just got a Shout Out in the December 2020 Sojourners Magazine! New and Noteworthy!
Check out Serena Agusto-Cox’s blog review of Raising King here.
Peniel Joseph, author of The Sword and the Shield: Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. writes: “Raising King is a groundbreaking poetry collection that helps rescue the radically compassionate legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Joseph Ross brilliantly reminds us that King’s power derived from the way in which he forced Americans and global citizens to confront uncomfortable truths about race, poverty, citizenship, and war. A must read.”
Raising King has been chosen for Community of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Social Justice Reading List!
Here is the launch video from Willow Books for Raising King:
ACHE, (2017) from Sibling Rivalry Press
Martin Espada writes:
These poems in ACHE flow from a fountain of compassion for those so often denied these sacred waters: immigrants crossing the border at their peril, people of color murdered by police now and half a century ago, the martyrs whose names we know– from Trayvon Martin to Archbishop Romero– and whose names we do not know. In one breath, the poet speaks in the voice of Nelson Mandela, addressing the mother of lynching victim Emmett Till; in the next breath he speaks of his own high school student, a young Black man spat upon by an officer of the law. In clear, concise language, Joseph Ross praises and grieves the world around him, the music as well as the murder.
Gospel of Dust (2013) from Main Street Rag Publishing
E. Ethelbert Miller writes:
“There is an amazing grace to be found in Gospel of Dust. This book is a rosary of pages for all believers.”
Meeting Bone Man (2012) from Main Street Rag Publishing
Naomi Shihab Nye writes:
“I finish this beautiful, brave book with tears and a desire to run outside into the blue chill day singing, calling to dogs and birds, sifting layers of elegy and affection that surround us all, gifts of recognition/recovery, precious connections and letting go, all of it at once, with our minds and our bones, yes, with everything we know. Thank you, Joseph Ross.”
Joseph Ross 