This past Monday, Rodrigo Toscano performed at Miami University’s Shriver Center, reading from his soon to be published epic poem, Explosion Rocks Springfield. Toscano’s energy, and his clear delight in performing his work, kept the audience enthralled throughout. His opening line and refrain, “The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care,” was a headline reporting an incident in Massachusetts. After the performance, Toscano relayed that amazingly enough, the daycare happened to be closed for a staff meeting and the manager of the strip club evacuated employees and patrons to a nearby cafeteria when gas was initially detected. Less than twenty people were injured in the blast, and it seemed a minor miracle worth writing about.
Having worked extensively with collaborative forms in the past, Toscano is natural in front of a crowd (and the audience did join in a chant of “Jank!” so he still hasn’t separated himself entirely from improvised collaborative work). Every reading of the startling and stark headline employed different accents and emphasis followed by lines exploring varying perspectives, forms, and rhythms. The audience was engaged for the duration of the performance (his exclamation of another repeating line, “Hi-ho!” made us all snap to attention each time), and Toscano’s Q & A afterward gave further insights to the intricacies of the poem. We know reading his lines will be quite different following the pleasure of seeing him perform, and are eager for Explosion Rocks Springfield’s release.
Speaking of releases, don’t forget to check out our new issue of OxMag, dropping on February 14th. Featuring work from David Ebenbach, Michael Czyzniejewski, James Reiss, Darren C. Demaree, Erica Bernheim, Bret Anthony Johnston, and many more talented writers, it’s sure to be a decadent treat for Valentine’s Day!
-Jess Marshall