City Terrace Field Manual

by Sesshu Foster

Book Overview

Brawling, street-wise prose poems push the boundaries of narrative form, taking the reader through the physical and psychological landscapes of East Los Angeles. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1885030193
• ISBN13: 9781885030191
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: Kaya/Muae
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

One of my faves

A collection of prose-poems. Evocative of Raymond Chanlder and John Fante. This book made me think of LA writers. A shocking thing just happened. As I thought the words to the second sentence, I was posessed with doubt because his book is old to me, and hasn't been opened in years. So I flipped to a page to read a little of it, hoping to refresh my memory. The page read: America is in the Heart and we are in the canebreak, we do not want to see St. Quentin again, John Fante and Raymond Chandler meet across from Pershing Square to make know-nothing commentary on Jazz joints down Central Avenue, we pack flour into sacks and stack them on trucks to remain in white while our families perish in the epidemic and they are burning down Chinatown to rid the city of slavery and disease, who knows what sort of man was hanging in the tree because he didn't have any skin left on him, the locomotive scared horses off Main Street, steam boiled up on us in the park behind the fruit stalls they sell little bottles of sex odos and maybe I need one maybe I need a new name an American name and I could be one of thousands getting up early to ride the trolley to San Pedro and take the exam for the shipyard.

Edgy, Funny, Substantial

The thing I liked about this book was how the words and images reflect the chaotic, blurry landscape of what it's like to live in L.A. It's not just black & white here, and Foster, who is a mixed-race Asian/Caucasian who grew up in East L.A., shows that complexity through a sharp sense of language and imagery, without sentimentality or preachiness. This is some of the best prose/poetry coming out of LA.

Fresh perspective,sharp insight

Sesshu Foster manages to strip away the conventions of most modern poetry. With the sparest prose, he achieves a work of balance and beauty, while describing a true time and a place of grit, violence and confusion. Sesshu Foster has made the sublime lucid and the ineffable experierience clear. An outstanding choice

Poetry for our day - Foster is a dazzling talent

It doesn't matter if you've never seen a barrio, if you've never set foot in the inner city, if you feel you can't relate to the frustrations and failures of povery-level existence in East L.A. This book isn't a tract or a sociological study. It's about the stories we tell ourselves, that we tell about people we know and used to know, related in language as harsh as life, and as lovely. How does Foster manage to keep his eye trained so unblinkingly on the ruin around him, the damage and debris, the lives wasted and the buildings razed, and yet write with such grace, and yearning? Plenty of the poems are angry, plenty of them rant against a system skewed against the poor working person, the lone man exhausted after a day at work trying to get his broken down car to a community meeting in the rain, the vet unable to make his way back into the world, even 20 years later. But even in these there is the surprise of a line veering into reverie, or leaping into joke, an image that tastes of pleasure. This is Foster's love song to City Terrace; he is a lover with his eyes wide open, aware of all his loved one's shortcomings and fatal flaws, adoring of its smallest charms. The freshness of Foster's language is a revelation, and a gift. And the book itself, the physical item, is gorgeous, worthy of the genius inside. In this info-glutted world, this is the kind of book we need, that cuts through to the red-hot core of who we are. It deserves to be read.

A Thrilling Journey

CITY TERRACE FIELD MANUAL is a exciting and thrilling journey into the depths of East Los Angeles as seen through the eyes of one who has lived it. From the graffitti in the back of chinese owned markets on the Avenue to the fading murals by Willie Heron, Sesshu Foster delves deep into the inner soul of City Terrace, ferreting out the hidden signs and subliminal references that clouded his childhood. This book is like a spinal tap into the heart of Los Angeles. It is the words of someone who has lived it. A guide for the past that applies to the future. It is a manual for living. It is...THE CITY TERRACE FIELD MANUAL