Downplaying entanglements
with national interests
and global affairs
Blurring the lines
between transparency
and obfuscation
This poet, nonetheless
seems pumped enough
to flip scripts
This poet, maybe
is para-national
or infra-national
This poet, actually
speaks from metropoles
to metropoles
Signaling new virtues
counter-signaling others
unlocking impulses
This poet is—jimmying
(is that okay, to say?)
people’s minds
Toggling non-pleasurables
to pleasurables
across frontiers
This poet is dial-turning
mass-body hokum
into source code
Tracking realignments
between power blocks
and cultures
Decoding goodwill
and bad faith
recoding trust
This poet, likely bops
from scene to scene
sourcing hype
Is this poet an agent
or double agent
for change?
-
Rodrigo Toscano is the author of Whitman. Cannonball. Puebla., The Charm and the Dread, In Range, Explosion Rocks Springfield, Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater, To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. His poetry has appeared in over twenty anthologies, including Diasporic Avant Gardes and Best American Poetry. Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. 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. Toscano lives in New Orleans.
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