History is an Afterthought

Steve Goldberg is a poet of bakeries and breakups, rainy days and buried memories. Like all good poets, he pays attention. He's obsessed with the ordinary and the overlooked. He's the poet next door who goes to the corner bar. He's a poet who pauses during the day because he knows that, "I'm in the three o'clock of my life / And it's three o'clock in the afternoon."

Mike James, author of Crows in the Jukebox

A map of a bodhisattva-engineer's trek across a frontier of inner-neighborhoods measured with loneliness, imperfection, unexpected beauty, and cups of rich coffee.

Nick Traenkner, host of the Literary Cafe poetry series


I can hear my story in Steve Goldberg's writings. Yes, that's what good poetry does: Reminds you of who you are - all the while inviting you stay awhile. I'll be staying a long while with Goldberg's poems. These poems come from a life lived in tradition, experiment, and question - reminding the reader of how close we are to touching one another ... reminding of how intertwined our dreams, wishes, challenges, loves, and lives truly are. And, he does it beautifully.

Bill Gainer, author of The Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems


Steve Goldberg is a poet's metapoet, not just aware of his indulgence of poetry, but embodying the charge of the jester, free to unleash the truth for all the readers to see the nakedness beneath everything, the ineffable stuff of life that flows through human contact is the glue that pulls this collection together. He lays out the relationship between the poem and "Schrodinger's Lottery Ticket" and is not afraid "to shave with Occam's Razor." His book is a love letter from Cleveland to the sublime moment that prowls about everyday life that Goldberg's eye, and pen, do not miss.

Paul Corman-Roberts, founder of Beast Crawl Lit Fest and author of Bone Moon Palace


Into a world increasingly inundated with words of polish and spin, vetted and cleared for the duty of obstructing truth and beauty, come these poems - giving us the unglossed, unvarnished truth of the human heart. And for that, the reader can be thankful.

Milenko (Miles) Budimir, author of Departures and Rustbelt Romance

Steve Goldberg doesn't care if you see him in his robe. He won't change for you, and he pays the price. He's an observer, from his city to the room behind his reflection in the mirror. He is a poet who examines context. He knows how he got here. He knows how we got here.


¿Elynn Alexander, publisher at Collapse Press and author of The Shouldspeak Disease