Joseph Ross is the author of five books of poetry: Crushed and Crowned (2023), Raising King (2020), Ache (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017), Gospel of Dust (Main Street Rag, 2013), Meeting Bone Man (Main Street Rag, 2012). He is co-editor of the anthology Cut Loose The Body: An Anthology of Poems on Torture and Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib Painting (DC Poets Against the War/American University, 2007), and founded and directed the Writing Center at Archbishop Carroll High School. Ross teaches English and Creative Writing at Gonzaga College High School. He teaches at American University and coordinates poetry and lectures at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. His poems have appeared in the anthologies Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality; Come Together: Imagine Peace; Poetic Voices Without Borders, and Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC. He has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2012 Pratt Library/Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize. He served as the 23rd Poet-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society in Howard County, MD. His website: http://www.JosephRoss.net.
A vibrant poetry program guides Jesuit high school students in their search for empathy and justice
JOSEPH ROSS writes about his experiences as a death row chaplain in Indiana, which led him to being a witness in the execution of Jerry Bivins. The quote that follows is taken from the link provided below the quote, titled "Living and Dying on Death Row: An Eyewitness Account."
"For four years I was a volunteer chaplain at the Indiana State Prison. I came to know many of the men on Indiana's death row. They know injustice well. Here is one of their stories.
Nearly every day, I lived through the bizarre experience of entering and leaving a maximum-security prison. Usually, the only people who enter and leave each day are, of course, guards. Their job is to keep the men locked up, as a service to the State. My job was, to some, less clear. To me however, it was quite clear: to listen, befriend and care for the men who were locked up. If I had a pastoral strategy, it was to walk up to a cell, ask the man in it "How are you?" and listen for the answer. With the men on death row, I listened to the answer to that question for four years. Their answers revealed remorse, fear, anger and sadness, and they often unfolded in friendship and brotherhood. It sounds odd to say, but I count as some of my good friends these men on death row."
Living and Dying on Death Row: An Eyewitness Account