GOAT TROUBLES

About the Book

GOAT TROUBLES and other CHICAGO Poems is a broad assortment of fresh poetry celebrating all things Chicago; and from the disillusioned heart of the Windy City’s grand American obsession: baseball! Throughout a diverse assembly of poems, John Ross conducts a tender yet bold voyage through many of Chicago’s most noted and often times overlooked places. Honoring his absent guide, and declaring inspiration with his opening poem, "Citing Carl Sandburg" in the book’s warm early verses, Ross declares his devotion and loyalty to the city he’s come to call his home: “LIKE him, I too brood about things/ with my lap top in the corner / of / an L train; /Oh and Dante too fingering his / dreadful L´Inferno never heard / or smelled any sulfur drops / or / any hellish Bible fears! / But like Carl Sandburg / I can write volumes about Chicago / after breathing the town over / for months then years.” From such elegies as "On Behalf of Lovable Losers", "Subway Series" and "The Pallid Pier" to the reverential tributes affirmed in "Green Mill Cocktail Lounge", "Third Coast Winters", and "Alta Vista Terrace", Ross helps re-establish a poetic legacy venerating the unique marvel and contributions of this great Midwestern city. A big town once associated with the counterfeit glamour of gangsters, to the butchering stockyards, and finally with the proud birth of the world’s first skyscrapers, this compilation gladly rejoices in the ever evolving Chicago, one first acknowledged as early as 1883 by that grand American folk hero, Mark Twain: “She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.” --Life on the Mississippi

About the Author

John Ross, Jr. holds graduate degrees from Boston University (S.T.M., theology), Harvard University (A.L.M, Dramatic Arts); and a third in pastoral theology (M.P.S.) from Loyola University Chicago. John is the author of four poetry collections. His interests include the relationship between science, religion and the fine arts. He teaches at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.