Rodrigo Toscano

Rodrigo Toscano’s newest book of poetry, The Charm and The Dread (Fence Books), appeared in spring 2021. His previous books include In Range (Counterpath Press, 2019), Explosion Rocks Springfield (Fence Books, 2017), Deck of Deeds (Counterpath, 2012), Collapsible Poetics Theater (a National Poetry Series selection; Fence Books, 2008), To Leveling Swerve (Krupskaya, 2004), Platform (Atelos, 2003), Partisans (O Books, 2019), and The Disparities (Green Integer, 2002). His poetry has appeared in the anthologies Voices Without Borders, Diasporic Avant Gardes, Imagined Theatres, In the Criminal’s Cabinet, Earth Bound, and Best American Poetry. Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. Toscano’s poetry has been translated into French, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Catalan. He works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers, the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, Communication Workers of America, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, and Northwest tribes (Umatilla, Cayuse, Yakima, Nez Perce) working on educational/training projects that involve environmental and labor justice and health and safety culture transformation. He is currently working on essential worker COVID training and vaccination networking nationwide. Toscano lives in New Orleans.

By this author

Zoning in, zoning out

The 'now what' question of music and poetics

from 'Conditions of Poetic Production and Reception'

Bumper-car effect

Truax Inimical

Recently in Jacket2

Jerome Rothenberg: December 11, 1931 – April 21, 2024

A reflection from Amish Trivedi

Jerome Rothenberg

Well, we’ve come to our end here. Somehow, in the hundreds of hours of phone calls and emails and late nights and breakfasts after, Jerry and I had never once discussed what might happen to this space once he passed away. We have even published a number of obituaries for friends of Jerry’s over the years. I’m not entirely convinced, sitting here writing at 3 a.m., that Jerry thought I’d be left with this task — and not the other way around.

Also I don't suffer (PoemTalk #195)

Ron Padgett, "Joe Brainard's Painting Bingo" & "The Austrian Maiden"

PoemTalk

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Al Filreis brought together James Berger and Richard Deming (who traveled together from Yale) and Sophia DuRose to talk about two poems by Ron Padgett. The poems are “The Austrian Maiden” and “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo.” Our recording of “The Austrian Maiden” comes from a February 26, 2003, reading Padgett gave at the Kelly Writers House; the poem had just recently been published in Padgett’s book You Never Know (2002). The recording of “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo” — a poem published in Great Balls of Fire (1969) — was performed at a November 20, 1979, reading given at a location that is now (sadly) unknown. That reading in its entirety is available at Padgett’s PennSound page; the recording comes to us courtesy of the Maureen Owen Collection of Greenwich Village Poetry, now housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

April 17, 2024

Digital Poetics 1

The Self Does Not Exist

William Lessard

When I look for a place to start our discussion, I am reminded of a website from a few years ago. With the ominous address “thispersondoenotexist.com,” the site presents a single face filling the screen, with another face replacing it every time the user presses “ENTER.” No commentary or introductory text is offered, but a quick search returns cautionary news articles written when the site launched in 2019. The site is the work of a former NVIDIA engineer who created a custom A.I. that generates faces in real time from images scraped from social media platforms.