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Welcome to My Site

My name is joseph D. Milosch I am a poet and writer. Take your time to learn about my writings, my work, and about me. I have included some of my favorite poems for you to read and this is also where you can purchase copies of my books!

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My Biography

During the last 40 years, Joe Milosch worked as a trail locator for the Cleveland National Forest and as a heavy construction inspector in the private sector. His poetry draws on those experiences, as his experiences growing up in the farmland north of Detroit, Michigan, and his army experiences during the Vietnam War. Besides working as a construction inspector, he has taught English Composition, Literature, Creative Writing, Technical Writing, and Linguistics at National University, Vincennes University, and San Diego State University.

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Listen now to Joe’s new podcast!

Between Iron Fences

Joe Milosch’s podcast is Between Iron Fences. Joseph is an award-winning poet and author. In his podcast his beautiful poetry is mixed in with his views on social activism, various rending topics and a quest interview.

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Recent Poems

Here are a few of my most recent poems. Please enjoy!

Homeless Ark

Under an overpass, a sleeping bag is shaped
like an upside-down U as it drapes over a
shopping cart, containing shirts, pants, boots,
and bags of bottles. Dripping from
the bag, water puddles. His dog drinks.

A man leans against his basket. He peers
through the U that he forms with his thumb
and four fingers. He watches the rain
falling outside the bridge. Do the dandelion
blooms at the curb’s edge bore him?

No one dreams of inverting the bridge into
an ark’s U-shaped vessel for the homeless.
Opening his toothless mouth in a scream,
he yells, “You, you, you” at the traffic,
and the cars pass him slow and unstoppable.

A Cricket is Singing

During the first spring
after your passing,
I looked out our bedroom
window at the orange tree.
As it blanketed
our bed with the odor
of its blooms,
I recalled the times we
used to lie in this bed
on the weekend
in the afternoon.
I remembered
how you liked the
smell of the tree’s
blossoms,
and how you liked
the way the petals
looked as the buds
opened and exposed
their hearts to the bees.
When we were in this
bed last April, the odor
of the orange blossoms
covered us like dew,
and I said,
“Listen,
a cricket
has found his way into
our room.
He sings to his lover,
who cannot find him.”
Now,
I am that cricket,
and I sing to my lover,
who has died.
I sing about my arms:
they long to hold her.

“Why Is a Scar on a Man…”

Why is a scar on a man a mark of distinction,

on a woman a mark of disfigurement?

I don’t know.

Why is it funny when a man loses his hair

and tragic when a woman loses hers?

I don’t know.

Could you make love to a bald, headed woman?

What will you say

when the X-Rays turn the scar

on her breast raw-

hamburger red?

When she’s bald, lost her eyebrows,

and lies closed-eyed

with a skeletal look,

will you kiss her

and tell her

she’s beautiful?

I don’t know.

What do you do

in the bedroom,

when she is thinking

of death

and she cries?

Awards and Recognition

Joe Milosch has four books. San Diego City Library selected his latest book, A Walk with Breast Cancer, for a Local Poet Book Award. He co-edited Poems that Speak to Us, Selected Poems of Steve Kowit, winner of the San Diego Library’s Author of the Month for April 2022. He co-edited An Activists’ Poetry Anthology, Selected Poems for “Good Trouble.”
His book, Homeplate Was the Heart & Other Stories, received a nomination for the American Book Award and the Eric Hoffer Best Small Press Publication award. His other books are The Lost Pilgrimage Poems & Landscape of a Woman and a Hummingbird. He won the City of San Diego Central Library Author of the Month. He has multiple nominations for the Pushcart, and his other books of poetry are The Lost Pilgrimage Poems & Landscape of a Woman and a Hummingbird.
He won the Mira Costa College Excellence in Literature Award and The Hackney Literary Award. He was the First Runner-Up, a finalist for the Steve Kowit Award, and a Semi-finalist in the Pangaea Prize for Poetry. Barnes and Noble published his first chapbook, On the Wing, as a regional publication, and Inevitable Press published his second chapbook, Father of Boards and Woodwinds. He was a finalist in the Tennessee Middle State Chapbook contest for his chapbook If I Could Imagine. His chapbook Among Men won the Tennessee Middle State Chapbook contest. The Laguna Poets Series published his fourth chapbook, Now She Bends Away.

His book A Walk with Breast Cancer. His book Homeplate Was the Heart & Other Stories was nominated for the American Book Award and the Eric Hoffer, best Small Press Publication.
He co-edited An Activists’ Poetry Anthology, Selected Poems for “Good Trouble.”
He co-edited Poems that Speak to Us, Selected Poems of Steve Kowit, winner of the San Diego Library’s Author of the Month April 2022.
His book Homeplate Was the Heart & Other Stories was nominated for the American Book Award 2020.
His book Homeplate Was the Heart & Other Stories was nominated and the Eric Hoffer Book Award Best Small Press Publication 2020.
His second book is Landscape of a Woman and a Hummingbird.
His first book is The Lost Pilgrimage Poems
He was a finalist for the Steve Kowit Award in 2023
He was a finalist for the Steve Kowit Award in 2022
He was a finalist for the Steve Kowit Award in 2020
He was First Runner-Up for the Steve Kowit Award in 2016.
He was a Semi-finalist in the 2018 Pangaea Prize for Poetry
He won the Hackney Literary Award in 2013.
He received an Excellence in Literature award from MiraCosta College.
He received an honorable mention for his poetry in The Chapel Jazz Poetry Contest 1999.
He won Tennessee Middle State Chapbook contest for Among Men in 1999.
He won The Laguna Poets Series Chapbook contest for Now She Bends Away in 1997.
He was a finalist in the Tennessee Middle State Chapbook contest for his chapbook If I could Imagine in 1996.

His first chapbook, On the Wing, published by Barnes and Noble as a regional publication. His second chapbook, Father of Boards and Woodwinds, published by the Inevitable Press for the Laguna Poets Series.

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