Explosion Rocks Springfield - Paperback

by Rodrigo Toscano (Author)

Explosion Rocks Springfield is eighty one-page iterations of the following line: The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.

Each iteration consists of analytical-philosophic queries, lyrical diffractions, and paranarrative documentary. Sixteen sub-topic variations appear. Every single word of the primary thematic line is exfoliated, extended, and exploded, multiplied, in a fugal structure, seeking the effects of content density, tension, and return. Continual re-figuration of all themata invites the reader to experience a pleasurable engagement with a material transparency that is neither prepackaged ("found") nor fancied from thin air ("inspired").

What is explosion to a slab of drywall?
What is "drywall" exactly?
HEIGH-HO!
Why do people strip?
What is "day care"? Why "day"?
What is night care?
Why daylight why daylight why daylight.
What is "care" exactly?
Gas. Wherefrom gas?

Raised in southern California, experimental poet, playwright, and labor activist Rodrigo Toscano is the author of seven collections of poetry including Collapsible Poetics Theater (2008), which was chosen for the National Poetry Series, and Deck of Deeds (2012). His work has been widely translated and anthologized; his radio pieces have aired on stations across the country. Toscano works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers and the National Institute for Environmental Health Science. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Author Biography

Rodrigo Toscano's newest book of poetry is Explosion Rocks Springfield Fence Books, 2016) His previous books include, Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater (a National Poetry Series selection), To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. 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 works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers, the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, Communication Workers of America, and National Day Laborers Organizing Network. Toscano lives in the Bayou Saint John Faubourg of New Orleans.