Synopses & Reviews
Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Ideological intention meets ideological surprise in TO LEVELING SWERVE, Rodrigo Toscano's fourth book of poetry. While continuing to develop his overriding concern with poem as radical social interface, TO LEVELING SWERVE extends a notion of poetic diction that is neither exclusively a problematic of aesthetics, nor enjoined to any one culture as interpretive key, running instead as a volatile commingling of the two. "TO LEVELING SWERVE is exciting, funny, encouraging, and perspicacious without any hint of premature congratulation. What Toscano does here will remain useful: it hasn't been done before and needs to be done more"--Bob Perelman.
About the Author
RODRIGO TOSCANO is the author of To Leveling Swerve (2005), Platform (2004), The Disparities (2002) and Partisans (1999). His poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2004, War and Peace (2004 and 2007), In the Criminal's Cabinet: An anthology of poetry and fiction (2004), and in McSweeney's "Poets Picking Poets." His polyvocalic pieces, poetics plays, and body-movement poems, and radio pieces have been performed and broadcast widely. His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Catalonian. Toscano is originally from Southern California. He works in Manhattan at the Labor Institute, and lives in Brooklyn.