Books
In addition to his art, Josh is an avid reader and writer. Over the years he has authored many essays and poems. These books are collected assortments of ideas at the core of his artistic philosophy.
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A Beggar at the Door: Longer and Shorter Psalms
Josh Golberg
Buy on Amazon“One can find the lore of beggars in Hinduism, Buddhism and Zen, Sufism, Daoism, the poetic traditions of China and Japan. These unsettling characters are on the outskirts of conventional living: society’s exiles tangled in tatters, coming out of side streets and back alleys. Or in the rearview mirror of our speeding car, we sometimes sight the occasional beggar saint, sage, or seer under a freeway, moving in slow motion from shadow to shaft of sun, tapping off a cigar ash in a concrete corner of oblivion. As a Jewish expression I sit beside them weeping and singing psalms along the dark road of Cosmic Exile.”— Josh Goldberg
“Like the psalms of tradition, Josh’s psalms are blessing, praise, prayer and plea. These are psalms that disclose, disrobe, disrupt; the veil is by turns coaxed open and ripped aside, in gestures by turns gentle and brutal. . . . These are psalms marked deeply by their mystical turn: part passionate frenzy, love-drunk rapture, part hushed whisper, a secret passed from lover to Beloved. These are psalms of promise, supplication, surrender. Naked, they present themselves, beggar at the door, lover in the making.”— Beth Benedix, editor of Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible
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Eight Beggars: Concatenating Verses of Separation and Repair
Josh Goldberg
Buy of AmazonTaking inspiration from the Hasidic master, Reb Nachman of Breslov’s classic Tale of the Seven Beggars, poet, Josh Goldberg has created a new work of beauty and profundity. He writes in his preface: "Any encounter with Reb Nachman makes us apocryphal and beggarly. ... He pulls us out from our settled comfortability. ...
Why eight beggars? Because Nachman’s seventh beggar never arrives? Perhaps. But as each beggar represents (“in the negative”) no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no neck, no back, no hands, and no feet, it is crucial to notice what indeed has been omitted. The nose, the major universal stereotype of the Jew, is missing. The physiognomy of exclusion and exile. The Nosed One. ... Of all the beggars, he alone enfolds our broken hearts as he prepares the dark future. His pain purifies the torn night. His storm-compassion addresses our unborn descendants. He gives us pause to understand who we are and who we are not."
"Josh Goldberg’s Eight Beggars is not yet another version of Reb Nachman’s story. It is a twenty-first century North-American Jewish answer to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s early nineteenth century Eastern European Jewish question—about the mystery of God and the world, and the place and task of humanity within that mystery. — Steven Joseph, Jungian Analyst
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A Thousand-and-One Nights & Twenty-Four Days
Josh Goldberg
Buy on AmazonIn this collection, noted artist and poet Josh Goldberg offers us a window on a thousand-and-one nights and twenty-four days in the life of a poet who has invited the muse to name the quality of life in a moment.