World Ball Notebook

by Sesshu Foster

Winner of the Asian American Literary Awards in Poetry

The first team sport in human history was played with a ball made of stone, on courts that have been found from the Mayan ruins of Central America to Arizona. Thus we find a soccer dad walking the sidelines of a scuff ed LA field, its goal lines swirling, nets strung loosely between daylight and the spirit world—Sesshu Foster’s inimitably fierce and powerfully evocative mix of the fantastic and the mundane.

Poet Sesshu Foster is the author of the highly acclaimed City Terrace Field Manual and Atomic Aztex, a novel.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Sesshu Foster is an American poet. He has taught composition and literature in East LA since 1985, and has also taught at the University of Iowa, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Jack Kerouac School's Summer Writing Program. He was in residence at California State University, Los Angeles.

Awards:
2010 American Book Award for World Ball Notebook
2009 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry for World Ball Notebook
2005 Believer Book Award for Atomik Aztex
1990 American Book Award for Invocation LA: Urban Multicultural Poetry
Finalist for a PEN Center West Poetry Prize, for City Terrace Field Manual
Finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize for City Terrace Field Manual

Reviews

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first team sport in human history was played with a ball made of stone, on courts that have been found from the Mayan ruins of Central America to Arizona. Thus we find a soccer dad walking the sidelines of a scuffed LA field, its goal lines swirling, nets strung loosely between daylight and the spirit world — Foster's inimitably fierce and powerfully evocative mix of the fantastic and the mundane.

Praise for Sesshu Foster's World Ball Notebook:

"Read this book and you will reach Nirvana in one hour. You will have become many lives, entered into the empty space of form and non-form, substance, texture and anti-being, you will have loved immense figures and you will have been spotted as a jazzy molecule in the stadium where all lives go to whirr and burn. A delicious lightening bolt of ecstatic urban Goddess-breath. This book is made of love. Read it now and be saved."
—Juan Felipe Herrera, author of 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border and Thunderweavers / Tejedoras de Rayos

"This isn't the sweeping canvas of his previous novel, the masterful Atomik Aztex, it is, instead, a book of quiet, weirdly hilarious, yet searing moments. . . . It's a slowly stitched together collection of small incidents that gradually start to seem more defiant than random, more funny than futile."
—Hal Niedzviecki, Broken Pencil

“Foster’s work exists at the intersection of writing the continuous present and capturing singular moments within the flow of life. . . . These poems lift great silences off any small detail, whether in the world or in his imagination. And even though Foster’s work takes us to various places around the world, it remains focused on Los Angeles and that ‘infinite city’s requirements, distractions, possibilities.’”
—Craig Santos Perez, Pleiades

[fire_on_the_mountain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another banger from Foster. There's a reason I can't get his voice out of my head. Even though I'm frequently wondering if I'm really picking up what he's putting down, I really liked working my way through the Games. There's beauty and pain and wonderment and regret to be had here, and you need to slow down and immerse yourself deeply into the worlds on page. Sometimes I think I'm someone that gets too immersed in current micro-moment, possibly to my own detriment trying to find the beauty or meaning or message; this, however, made me appreciate that part of myself.

[Steev Hise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Experimental poetry. Prose Poetry. I often think what is the difference between prose and prose poetry? Is it just the format? the fact that the text is just a little block on an otherwise blank page, as opposed to prose where they squeeze as many words onto each page as they can? Sometimes it feels that way.

Anyway, I like Atomik Aztex a lot better but I'm just biased toward novels. I thought, from the blurbs, that it would be more like that, more kind of dreamy alternate history stuff about mesoamerican sports. It's more like little quirky anecdotes from Foster's real life, bent into experimental forms and with clever observations. Which is great, I enjoyed it, but just not 5 stars.

[Ben Brackett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really liked his metaphors in his novel, so thought I'd try again to see if I could experimental form. Nope, not for me.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fearless, powerful prose poems that travel into places you might never go to otherwise. Foster brings hard truths back about what life is like and what's more amazing, that there is sometimes optimism and hope in the most forgotten places. Any time you become complacent about your life, open this book and expand your wisdom.

From Game 70:

you note these people are not merely worn down, aged before their time by exposure and travail, they are actually losing parts of themselves

is it true what they say about your country? he asks.--what's that?--oh that life is so much easier there.--yes, yes it must be easier than here.--yes, I want to go.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best prose poems ever about watching one's daughter play youth soccer, among dozens of other foci, like San Fran's traffic, Trader Joe's, mention or two of Iowa City. Many different forms. Not much of a reaction in this reader other than quiet admiration/respect: the definition of a solid three stars.

[Kris Saknussemm · Rating 4 out of 5]

More cool stuff from the author of Atomic Aztex.

[Esther]

Won the Asian American Literary Awards in 2009

[Dana Jerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great game of life and the luster of its moments. Surely worth a read. His voice is easy to get into.