The Cut Point
Rodrigo Toscano
Purchase copies here, or write to counterpath@gmail.com.
“With The Cut Point Rodrigo Toscano holds ground as one of the great civilizational poets of our time. Not just social, dictional, or interruptive—although it is all those things—this book is entangled in the symbolic and formal roots of how we imagine our collective achievements and bury the liability of our shared failures. Labor, architecture, taxation, trade, expansionism, industry, climatic and geological impact, and all the rest of the artefactual state find situated meditations in the biting deep time and often gorgeously sardonic planetarity of these poems. Toscano’s The Cut Point carves clarity into the immensity of its object, the civilizing process itself.” —Edgar Garcia
“The Cut Point is a ‘techno-modern Bastille at the cliff edge of governance,’ a brilliant collection of alternating rhythms and forms. Bouncing from Congolese cobalt pits where minerals are extracted for electric car batteries to the floodwaters of New Orleans, Toscano captures the complexities and contradictions of our times with his sharp wit. Whether Toscano is writing a sonnet comparing the labor of poetry to the labor of electric linemen ‘hitting sixteen hour shifts repairing / lines’ or a satirical poem about poetry itself—’Are tercets imperialist thugs?’ he balances insight about the tragic systems we are all forced into with humor and depth.” —Sandra Simonds
Rodrigo Toscano is a poet and dialogist based in New Orleans. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His most recent is The Charm & The Dread (Fence Books, 2022). His previous books include In Range, Explosion Rocks Springfield, Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater (a National Poetry Series selection), To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. His poetry has appeared in over twenty anthologies, including Angels of the Americlypse, Voices Without Borders, Diasporic Avant Gardes, Imagined Theatres, In the Criminal’s Cabinet, Earth Bound, Best Experimental Poetry, and Best American Poetry. Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. His works have been translated into French, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Catalan. 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, health & safety culture transformation. rodrigotoscano.com @Toscano200
The Cut Point
April 2023
Rodrigo Toscano
$22.00; 5.5 x 8.5″
104 pgs.
ISBN 978-1-93-399683-7
Purchase copies here, or write to counterpath@gmail.com.