Name: Joe Ross
Current City: Paris
Previous Places: PA, D.C., CA
Occupation: That would be nice. In the mean time: writing, coaching, teaching, being present, and with those I meet.
Age: Current
What does poetry mean to you?
Poetry is a place of wander, wonder, connection, music, discovery, transmission, wisdom, fun, truth, experimentation, mystery, renewal, beauty, hope, essence, and sometimes something to dance to.
Favorite Poet:
The one I’m reading. Currently, Tomas Tranströmer.
Why do you like this poet/poem?
Friendship, attention, being, use of metaphor, image, music, honesty, truth, humanity, and connection.
A poem from Tranströmer:
Journey
On the subway platform.
A crowd among billboards
in a staring dead light.
The train comes and fetches
faces and briefcases.
Darkness next. We sit
like statues in the cars
hauled into the tunnels.
Strain, dreams, strain.
At stations below sea level
the news of darkness is sold.
People moving melancholy,
mum, beneath clockfaces.
The train carries a load
of street clothes and souls.
Looks in all directions,
passing through the mountain.
Nothing changing yet.
But near the surface begins
the hum of freedom’s bees.
We emerge from the earth.
The countryside flaps its wings
once, and then subsides
under us, wide and greenish.
Shucks of corn blow in
across the platforms.
End of the line! I ride
beyond the end of the line.
How many aboard? Four,
five, hardly more.
Houses, roads, skies,
fjords, mountains
have opened their windows.