Rodrigo Toscano
@Toscano200
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Poet, Rhetor, Dialogist. Author of twelve books. National Poetry Series. Best American Poetry. Best Experimental Poetry. Labor Institute. United Steelworkers.
New Orleans, LA
Joined March 2019
My most recent pair of books seek to highlight vital stress points within our socio-political landscape. The Cut Point (Counterpath, 2023), The Charm & The Dread (Fence, 2022). Grateful for endorsements by Ariana Reines, Douglas Kearney, Sandra Simonds, and Edgar Garcia. Books
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With AI lurching around every corner, and the lashings out of a spooled out empire, and the fraying of democratic institutions, all in an ocean of narcissistic copes, especially around the Success of China, is making U.S.A. poetry into a movie set of cardboard sentiments.
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The publishing of poems, whether through books or journals (both print and online) is too delayed to mediate the wave crests of the zeitgeist. That's one of the reasons why turbo normie poets thrive in the U.S. scene. The avoidance of material context to expression pays - big.
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If writing teachers hunkered down with Bertolt Brecht's poems, and if their students grapsed how those poems differ from idealist (obscurantist) approaches to culture, those students might pivot against their own previous work, and maybe their teacher's too. Happy August preppin.
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The poetry reading is people gathering round to hear tales that pertain to them in some way or other. The tale's performers are the words themselves. The "author" is the gatherer of the words. The author has also arrayed the words into specific patterns for various effects.
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Humans say this that and the other. So do words themselves. There it is: "poetics". A mad way of life.
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RT @Harmony_Holiday: There are no symbolic cures for forced famine, the borders need to be open so food can enter and every government is c….
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Your garden variety institutionally buttressed poet and their network of nepotistic client readers should be trembling about now. AI is an inch away from cloning them all. Revealed will be a formulaic late empire holding pattern poetry dripping with calculated sentimentalism.
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Poems of succor, redemption, renewal, "healing", that's a lot of current American Poetry. But what about simply 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 where one roams within the topographies of nation & empire, and speaking from those humbling new valleys, instead of promontories of dead universals.
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Creeley's poetry is amazingly intricate and glorious in its simplicity as complexity. It is peerless. It is also the last grand testament of the hyper-individualist inner jihad of Americans. But the saga of I & You is simply not enough for our world now. Main reason why I write.
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I've never vibed with Rilke, nor Oppen, nor Vallejo. I used to be a bit disturbed by it, given their acclaim and legions of devoted followers. These days, I'm a bit unsettled that I'm not in the least bit disturbed by not vibing with them. And super disturbed by the word "vibe".
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When I first joined Twitter, my aim was not to post on straight up politics (national, global), nor on straight up matters of poetry, but something between the two, a meta-political poetics, dialectically weaving a movement forward, no matter the mess behind nor in front.
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The path is a Greater Americas swallowing up MAGA and its controlled opposition -- at the level of poetics, meta-politics, and politics. The cut point is not a humanist universal angst vs. violence, but a strident geopolitical realignment vs. anglo-imperial rule.
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Poetry's primary opponent has become AI, not the "insensitive" or "brutish" human who doesnt appreciate the "magic" of poetry. Matter of fact, many of your favorite normie poets are AI-able. And it's those very poets who prattle on about the Magic of Poetry - for hard money.
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Everything is bad for you: alcohol, carbs, gluten, negative thoughts, life itself, and most of all, "tha' vahnanah". Check in to see why. This poem from 20 years ago. Click audio. Cheers.
poetryfoundation.org
Tha’ vahnahnah go-een to keel joo. Uh — O’ káy. If joo ee tha’ vahnahnah, joo weel be leeving ôp a-hed, righ? Alrigh, sô, vahnahnah poosh you there. Tha’ vahnahnah go-een to keel joo, baby.
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One's hemispheric politics determines one's national politics; and one's national politics determines one's historical concsiousness (many have it the reverse). And poetics slithers between all those gray buildings like a young orange cat.
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Forgot to post this little creature of a poem, "Warlocks of War" .
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I guess I'm an Constructivist Lyric Poet. Any other CLP's out there?.
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What I really have to say, I do through poems. And those strive to find a "home", either in journals or books (both transitory in the grand scheme of things). "Humanity (a kind of churn)", thinks through the quandary, but remains "homeless". Keepin it ultra real, fucknut editors.
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After a long day (three decades of days) I'm done with prodding brittle bureaucrats to add colors to their thinking besides their go-to black, white, and gray tones. Now, back to me pondering Bach fugues, and submitting my sonnets.
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