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World Ball Notebook by Sesshu Foster [in San Francisco Chronicle]

World Ball NotebookThe cover of Sesshu Foster‘s latest title, World Ball Notebook – with its leering skeleton partially superimposed on a photograph of children playing soccer on a city street flanked by abandoned buildings – is the first sign that this slim volume is not going to be easy reading.

Foster calls his numbered prose poems “games”: “Game 1” through “Game 118.” These games are anything but straightforward. Rather, they’re multi-layered, with unexpected challenges: ancient games, modern games, play the game, join the game, are you game, get your game on, already.

Foster’s strength is twofold: As an observer, he transforms the most mundane events into moments of intense awareness; as a writer, he reduces the chaos of an inexplicable world into tightly cropped snapshots. Foster uses endless juxtapositions to both expose and celebrate the contrapuntal nature of everyday life: “As if things exist in light and darkness both simultaneous … As if things cold and on fire both now … As if things go away and disappear and come back different.” …[click here for more]

Review: San Francisco Chronicle, December 24, 2008

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2009

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