Sassy Ross is a poet. Born in

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. Part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Saint Vincent ...

, she lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Early life

Ross was born in Castries, Saint Lucia. She lived her early years in the Caribbean and grew up speaking a mixture of English and French

patois ''Patois'' (, same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or sl ...

. When she was ten years old she moved to the United States, arriving in Virginia. She attended

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

and began writing poetry. She moved to New York and received her

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

degree in poetry from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(NYU).

Career

While studying poetry at NYU, Ross was nominated for a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. She later taught Creative Writing at NYU, and also taught high school English at the Student Center program in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, where she was a member of the Nommo Literary Workshop. She also served as the managing editor of ''

Calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvest ...

'', a NYU publication. Her work has appeared in ''

Prairie Schooner ''Prairie Schooner'' is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press. It is based in Lincoln, Nebraska and was first publi ...

'', ''

Caribbean Beat ''Caribbean Beat'', founded in 1992, is a bimonthly magazine, published in Port of Spain, Trinidad, covering the arts, culture and society of the Caribbean, with a focus on the region's English-speaking territories. It is distributed in-flight by ...

'', the ''

Caribbean Review of Books ''The Caribbean Review of Books'', or ''CRB'', is a literary magazine based in Port of Spain, Trinidad, reviewing books of Caribbean interest—by Caribbean authors or about the Caribbean—and publishing original fiction, poetry, and other liter ...

'', '' Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters'', '' Poetry International'', '' Kalliope'', online journals such as ''

Mélange In geology, a mélange is a large-scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix. The mélange typically con ...

'' and '' Timbooktu'', and ''Coming Up Hot'', an anthology of Caribbean poets. She received second place in the Katey Lehman Creative Writing contest.

Work

Sassy Ross's poems focus on a nostalgia for the past, the geography, and the languages and voices she left behind in the Caribbean. Her poems recall the landscapes of St. Lucia, and explore the central themes of home in relation to her departure, and return, also examining her relationships with her parents, displacement, language, conflict, and trauma, both from the perils of the island and her past.

References

Sources

* Dawes, Kwame Senu Neville. ''Coming up Hot: Eight New Poets from the Caribbean''. Leeds, United Kingdom: Peekash, 2015. Print. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Sassy Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Pennsylvania State University alumni People from Castries Saint Lucian women poets