DAVID JOSEPH
Books
Click on the links to purchase my books, and thanks for your interest in my site.
Fiction
The Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories
In this collection of stories on love and loss, hopes and dreams, and memory and regret, David Joseph’s prose resonates in an authentic and convincing manner.His writing possesses an ability to convey real emotion through compelling, simple language, human interaction, and small moments. The collection, which is set in the Iberian Peninsula, carries the weight of the author’s sincerity throughout. In an effort to bind us as humans, the characters in these stories experience extraordinary moments within the confines of ordinary lives.
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY, SO I JUST SAID THANKS
In this collection of stories, David Joseph examines human relationships through the manner in which the characters learn to cope with expectations, dreams, and disappointment. He depicts interactions with subtlety, as characters seek redemption and relief in an effort to find gratitude.
Similar to his first book of fiction, The Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories, David Joseph displays an ability to draw insights from small moments. The result is a powerful new collection of short fiction. I Didn’t Know What To Say, So I Just Said Thanks captures the awkward silences and empty spaces where time is suspended, and we are forced to consider the complexities of what lies ahead.
I NEVER KNEW HOW OLD I WAS
In David Joseph’s third collection of fiction, I Never Knew How Old I Was, the stories explore the complexity of relationships across age - physical, emotional, spiritual, and experiential. Young and Old. Age that can be life affirming or world-weary. Foolish or wise. Confident or insecure. All written from the first-person perspective, the stories here are deeply personal and revealing. Through the emotional and physical intimacy of the characters’ interactions, his writing unearths the invisible wounds we cannot see.
Consistent with his first two collections of fiction, The Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories and I Didn’t Know What to Say, So I Just Said Thanks, David Joseph uses his ability to explore challenging themes through the most natural human interactions. His writing style is simple and clear in an attempt to leave just the right amount unsaid.
I Never Knew How Old I Was is an ambitious collection that resonates with quiet power.
Poetry
THE WHITE PIGEON
David Joseph’s first book of poems is a journey that moves quietly from the great expanses of the American desert to the loose sediments and unrest of foreign soil. Joseph writes of distance, silence, sleep, snow, rabbits, floods, wars, darkness, and ultimately about hope. Through it all, The White Pigeon is rooted in a sense of place -- place in the landscape, place in the universe, and place in time. Joseph takes on large subjects in small poems with clarity and grace.
SOMETIMES WE CAN FALL ASLEEP BELOW STARS AND ALREADY BE HOME
"David Joseph’s poems, at various points in my life, have been unforeseen rafts; they carried me through, effortlessly. His poems have been Joshua Trees; arcing in singularity of shape and light towards the firmament. This collection of David’s poems, Sometimes We Can Fall Asleep Below Stars and Already Be Home, is a torch. This torch casts light upon the poet’s early forays into the darkness of the blank page and the accompanying, incandescent longings of a gifted poet, writing to honor the stirrings of his soul. Like William Carlos Williams’ headlights casting over the top of a field of tall grass, David Joseph beckons for our eyes to find the fog, the firefly, the faith - to be at home."
- Brian Buckley, Executive Director Southwest Native American Foundation, Teacher, Poet