Month: December 2022

Behind the Scenes with Rodrigo Toscano, author of Flight Plan

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6VvKpA0dIfFZSoN5NfAZ7S?si=xDk2X4EGSF2b7eSNDtwEPw

Warning: This episode might leave you hungry for tacos. This is probably the first time Teresa has ever heard a sonnet described as a meditation, but once you hear what Rodrigo has to say, you might never look at a sonnet the same way again.

Rodrigo Toscano is a poet and essayist based in New Orleans. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His newest book is The Charm & The Dread (Fence Books, 2022). His Collapsible Poetics Theater was a National Poetry Series selection. He has appeared in over 20 anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Best American Experimental Poetry (BAX).  Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. rodrigotoscano.com  @Toscano200

Poetry: Flight Plan by Rodrigo Toscano

Stuck at the airport? Enjoy this meditative sonnet while you’re waiting to see where your personal flight plan will take you.

Rodrigo Toscano is a poet and essayist based in New Orleans. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His newest book is The Charm & The Dread (Fence Books, 2022). His Collapsible Poetics Theater was a National Poetry Series selection. He has appeared in over 20 anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Best American Experimental Poetry (BAX).  Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. rodrigotoscano.com  @Toscano200

Behind the Scenes with Victoria Buitron, author of One Star Review

This episode first appeared in January 2022. Is this piece based on Victoria’s actual life? Can you eat a Hermit crab essay, and if so, does it taste like chicken?

From the Archives: One Star Review by Victoria Buitron

This episode first appeared in January of 2022. It seemed appropriate to share it again on the 4th of July, as the main character frees a chainsaw to follow its own bliss…far, far away from her.

Transcript is below

1-Star Review for the Cordless Electric Chainsaw

by Victoria Buitron

My husband would give it five stars, but I can only give it a one because it has swallowed my life like a Florida sinkhole.  It was fine at first, when he built the Little Free Library for me in the front of our house. We painted it patterns of Paisley pink and luminescent yellow, so even during the winter—when there’s a foot of snow—I can think of spring. But he’s been using it for everything now. Cutting wood, building a climbing wall, making Winnie the Pooh wooden masks that my daughter begs him to wear while he reads her a book before bed, jolting the crows away from the sunflowers with the vroom. The other day I heard him humming and then calling the thing in his hand Chase the Chainsaw. Whatever project our son asks him to do, he’ll use the chainsaw to cut and slash and destroy and rebirth. Because it’s faster, he says. I’m tired. I actually threw the last chainsaw into the river, after hot yoga class, parked on the cherry-colored bridge. A splash like the river had gulped it. I lied and told him that it fell and broke when I went to grab some firewood. I thought maybe he’d use the old saw, sweat until his arm became sore and his muscles flexed, but the next day he went to get another one. This one is called Casey the Chainsaw. I have another death for him lined up. If there’s a Chad the Chainsaw, I’m charging his credit card with noise-canceling ear muffs and purchasing acoustic foam panels to enact as a sound barrier around our bedroom—so I am only privy to his  final creations—because I love what he makes, but not how he makes them, and please, damnit, if someone knows how to annihilate these cordless Lucifer-sent technological contraptions without it looking too obvious, please email me at suburbanchainsawmassacre@gmail.com.