“Beyond Waking is a stunning book that transcends time in its movement: stripping it down, puncturing the layers of formality of presentation/while at the same time honoring them… It lives brilliantly amid the collecting and dispersing/the intimate and the public, where madness and joy spiral and swirl away—delivering us to the pivot of belief.”
—Jan Beatty, author of Red Sugar, Boneshaker, Mad River, and Ravenous
“In Beyond Waking, the flower once seen remains on the inner eye, the note once heard diminishes but never disappears. Spend time in Joseph Karasek’s world...you’ll return with a clearer eye, a deeper heart, for your own.”
—Richard St. John, author of The Pure Inconstancy of Grace
Joseph Karasek grew up in New York City. He created school orchestras on the elementary and secondary levels, and taught music composition and music theory at Long Island University. He has lived in Pittsburgh, PA since 1991, and now spends his winters in California. His poetry has been published in Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach, 2006) and Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant, 2009).
