Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Rodrigo Toscano's PLATFORM is a political one; his writings are predicated on the political conditions of contemporary life. But his work is not (and will never be) predicted by those conditions; indeed, outwitting, unnerving, and outspeaking the forces and figures clinging to control is one of his signal artistic strategies. It would be correct to read PLATFORM as a triumphant product of precise and complex labor (thus adding to the tradition set by of Louis Zukofsky). But where the spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach informed Zukofsky's work, we would suggest that it is the spirit of the Teatro Campesino that informs Toscano's—his poems carry out brilliantly creative interventions. The works is bitingly inventive and yet delicately meticulous; outrageous, funny, anti-hypocritical, and "unfuckingrightgaggable," PLATFORM is victory for the political intelligence whose exercise is now, more than ever, a human necessity.

Author Hometown: BROOKLYN, NY USA



About the author: Rodrigo Toscano's latest books are DECK OF DEEDS (Counterpath Press, 2012) and COLLAPSIBLE POETICS THEATER (Fence Books, 2008). His poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry, and in McSweeny's "Poets Picking Poets." He was a 2005 recipient of a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. Toscano is also the artistic director and writer for the Collapsible Poetics Theater (CPT). Toscano has worked in labor politics and environmental justice movements for over fifteen years.

Reviews:
author @ PennSound
Deborah Meadows @ Jacket