Losing Season

Losing Season explores the often unsettlingly central role that sports play in American life. From the star player to the kid who never gets in a game to the town religious fanatic to the disgruntled parent—all have their say. Even if you haven’t lived in this town, you will recognize the lives of quiet endurance, unrecognized triumph, harsh weather, and hardnosed hope that propel people through the season.

Jack Ridl, Poet Laureate of Douglas, Michigan (Population 1100), in April 2019 released Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press). His Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (WSUPress, 2013) was awarded the National Gold Medal for poetry by ForeWord Reviews/Indie Fab. His collection Broken Symmetry (WSUPress) was co-recipient of The Society of Midland Authors best book of poetry award for 2006. His Losing Season (CavanKerry Press) was named the best sports book of the year for 2009 by The Institute for International Sport.Then Poet Laureate Billy Collins selected his Against Elegies for The Center for Book Arts Chapbook Award. Every Thursday following the 2016 election he sent out a commentary and poem. The students at Hope College named him both their Outstanding Professor and their Favorite Professor, and in 1996 The Carnegie (CASE) Foundation named him Michigan Professor of the Year. More than 90 of Jack’s students are published, several of whom have received First Book Awards, national honors. For further information about Jack, his website is www.ridl.com.

Losing Season explores the often unsettlingly central role that sports plays in American life. From the star player to the kid who never gets in a game to the town religious fanatic to the disgruntled parent—all have their say. Even if you haven’t lived in this town, you will recognize the lives of quiet endurance, unrecognized triumph, harsh weather, and hardnosed hope that propel people through the season.

I’ve been publishing Chris Bursk’s disarmingly intimate and unflinchingly honest poetry for nearly forty years, and I continue to be awed by his vulnerability and courage. Also the man can write: his love of language is palpable. You can tell he chooses each word carefully, yet the overall effect is of a flowing conversation. It’s a conversation that’s sometimes uncomfortably direct – say when he explores the darker sides of sexual desire – but his humility and generosity of spirit make him an always-trustworthy guide.
– Sy Safransky, Editor, The Sun

Christopher Bursk confesses that until he was seventeen, he solaced himself by inventing an imaginary companion. The quiet triumph of this book is that he enlists the reader as such a secret sharer. In A Car Stops and a Door Opens, he takes us on a “road trip” that includes his troubled upbringing. On this journey, he explores relationships with honesty and empathy, while disarming us with his rueful, quirky wit: “No one else was willing to be Judas, so I agreed…” Bursk is America’s bard of adolescence.
— Philip Fried, editor Manhattan Review

September 2009
104 pp
Trade paper – 9 X 6.25
$16
978-1-933880-15-0