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Collapsible Poetics Theater
Rodrigo Toscano
Fence Books
distributed by
University Press of New England
2008 • 96 pp. 6 x 8"
Poetry
$19.00 Paper, 978-1-934200-18-6
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“Part carnivalesque rap, part sleight-of-hand shuffle, Collapsible Poetics Theater maneuvers its way through public language of several sorts to give theater a Realpolitik poetic voice. From "BALM TO BILK," wordplay doubles as subversive text in virtue of its voicing passed through from player to player. The poetry, built of linguistic slippage, occurs all the more readily for the bilingual speaker or the ex-patriot, whose frames of reference are plural and yet destabilized.
“With a cape, confetti and placard, two players and Master of Ceremonies conduct their feints and dodges about concepts of engagement and faith. Has this author been reading the critical social spatiality of Michel de Certeau? The author has certainly been reading poetics, from Mikhail Bahktin's radical linguistics to the controlled clamor of Carla Harryman's dramatic praxis. The art of play has found a talented proponent. "
—Marjorie Welish, 2008 National Poetry Series Judge.
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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 & 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.
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