Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table: new and selected poems
Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table: New and Selected Poems by Steve Brisendine is a poignant look at small towns, about youth and about life itself.
In “Climbing the Slide” we are reminded which route Spider-Man would choose, just before we are reminded that it all goes one way far too fast. Steve moves from laugh-out-loud funny in some poems to an incredible sadness in others. In the poem “Interstate Flight,” he writes:
I would say there was no meaning in it, then
or now, but the odd child who still lives
in my head insists otherwise.
These poems are instantly relatable. I think we all had an “Elementary Education” worth writing about, but Brisendine does so with a surgeon’s eye for detail and the heart of your favorite uncle!
Good poems make you think, good poems make you feel, but great poems do both. Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table is a collection of truly great poems.
-Matthew Borczon, author of All the Ghosts in my Hometown
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Brisendine invites us to break bread with him and deeply examine time -- one lifetime, to be precise. His free verse is filled with hyper-specific scenarios that still convey the universal experience of growing pains and self-actualization. From wistful to whimsical, charming to churlish, pensive to punny, this volume is somehow sparse yet rich and leaves us wanting more despite its thoroughness. It features interactions with goddesses, superheroes, rock stars, and of course the everyday archetypes of family members, schoolmates, and community figures. The narrator occasionally judges his younger self too harshly, perhaps due to an unshakeable effect of his “good boy” Baptist upbringing. Nevertheless, he gently pokes holes in hypocritical ideas, pokes fun at his own mistakes, and maybe even “pokes the bear” a bit because he just can’t help himself. Anything and everything is worthy of closer inspection. He admits he was “ever the odd child, given to attaching outsized significance to small things.” Thank goodness.
-Julie Brin, author of The Sigh and Flutter
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My favorite Steve Brisendine poetry collection is always the next one, and Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table faithfully follows that pattern. Brisendine turns back the clock and both interrogates the complicated past and celebrates it. The lines of these poems are grounded firmly in the lush expanse of Kansas: the Flint Hills, tornado sirens, gas station parking lots, classrooms, ball fields, strip-mall Chinese joints, and cemeteries. What always strikes me most about Brisendine’s brand of poetics is the unpretentious way he presents the world: witty turns of phrase, clever word play, concrete Midwestern imagery, and a healthy amount of snark that demonstrates his keen eye for the humor and irony all around us. In Pitch Invader on a Foosball Table, Brisendine preserves “the old stories,” tells new ones, and leaves readers suspended at the tops of Ferris wheels and craving deep-fat-fried food and the nostalgia of simpler times.
-Cody Shrum, author of Oakaville and Green Acre