An American Voyage (Paperback)

What makes for the connection that unites a collection of people to form a nation, a civilization? What shapes their consciousness into considerations beyond the self and into the humanity of the whole? These are some of the concerns that inform Joe Ross's An American Voyage, a lyrical investigation into the roots, make-up, and hopes of America and the American individual. In the tradition of other American attempts at answering such questions (Whitman's "Song of Myself" comes to mind), Ross's work attempts to define a nation too young to "know, " but old enough to consider the consequences of not knowing. Divided into three major sections - the first of which addresses our beginnings, the second of which explores the "stalemate" of the adolescence in which the author sees contemporary America, and the third of which sings to the heart of the people - Ross's ambitious song cries out for a true American language, a voice of the soul.