Rudy Francisco

Rudy K. Francisco (Born July 27, 1982) is an American spoken word poet and poetry author.[1][2][3][4][5] He has won several Poetry Slams and written four books of poetry: Getting Stitches, Scratch, No Gravity, and Helium.[6] He made an appearance on TV One's Verses and Flow and performed his spoken-word poem "Complainers" on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.[7][8]

Early life

Rudy Francisco was born and raised in San Diego, California.[9] He wrote a love poem as part of a writing assignment in his senior year of high school and received high marks for it.[3][10] Rudy did not want to read this poem himself so his friend read it out loud for him instead.[11] His teacher suggested he should keep up with his writing.[11][10]

Rudy attended Alliant International University in San Diego.[11] He went on to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and pursue a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology.[11] Rudy was also an RA at his school and started hosting open mics.[11][10] He got invited to other open mics and met other poets through them.[11] As he got more involved with performing shows, he used to miss school a lot due to all the shows he did.[11] Rudy has said that it was a very hard decision for him to decide between school and poetry, but he was in love with poetry more than his program.[11] He worked as a statistical analyst and completed three years of a Ph.D. program before quitting to do poetry full time.[1][11]

Poetry career

Rudy first got into performance poetry after going to many open mics and also after watching a show that featured the poet Shihan and fell in love with the style afterwards.[11] At first, Rudy has said that he thought that performing your poems was weird since you were being judged for your art.[11] Now, he enjoys getting a score at the end of competition performances.[11] He found that slam combines his two favorite things: writing and performing.[11] Rudy has performed in many competitions, as well as shows all around the country and out of the states.[12][11][10]

Rudy went on to write his debut poetry book Getting Stitches in 2013, Scratch in 2014, No Gravity in 2015, and his first full length book Helium in 2017. It took Rudy Francisco a year and a half to write the book.[11] Helium received positive reviews.[6][13][14] When asked what Helium means in an interview, Francisco states that "helium allows you to defy gravity" and “in a lot of ways poetry always gave me that temporary escape.”[11] Themes for Helium include: race, class, gender, love, self reflection, and that "he is not finished yet, he is still learning."[11][15]

Rudy Francisco is the founder and current coach of the San Diego Poetry Slam Team, which won the 2017 National Poetry Slam Championship.[16][17]

Rudy Francisco performed his spoken-word poem "Complainers" on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 1, 2018.[7][8] Rudy Francisco is the first to do a full length poem on the Tonight Show. When it comes to social media, Francisco has said it is very important to him and he is unsure if he would be able to do his poetry career full time without it.[11]

Personal life

When Rudy describes himself in an interview with Book Circle Online, he notes himself to be very competitive and that is why he loves slam poetry so much. He has said he loves competition and performing.[11] They help him improve and it brings out the best in him.[11] Rudy also says that the slam community allows you be apart of a family, going on to say “some of my closest friends are people I have been on teams with or competed against. It is what keeps me coming back around.”[11]

Rudy has a two year old daughter. He has been working on poems about her which he hopes to finish soon.[11] In general, Rudy writes about what he goes through and adjusting to fatherhood is “at the forefront of his mind.”[11]

Future Plans

As of 2018, Rudy Francisco previously toured in the UK this past May/June.[12] In early June, Button Poetry made the announcement on Facebook that the performances scheduled for India with Rudy Francisco and Sabrina Benaim was cancelled due to "scheduling and organizational issues."[18] Rudy is performing at the 2018 slam poetry competition taking place in Chicago representing the San Diego team again in August.[11] Rudy is also going on tour in October in the UK with fellow poets Neil Hilborn and Sabrina Benaim.[12] He will be the host city coordinator for the Individual World Poetry Slam taking place in Southern California.[11] Rudy has said that he hopes to rent out venues and throw his own shows.[11]

Books of poetry

  • Getting Stitches (2013)
  • Scratch (2014)
  • No Gravity (2015)
  • Helium (2017)

Poetry awards

  • 2007 San Diego Grand Slam Champion
  • 2007 Poet of the People Slam Champion
  • 2008 Member of the Hollywood Poetry Slam Team
  • 2009 National Underground Poetry Individual Champion
  • 2009 3rd place in the Individual World Poetry Slam
  • 2010 La Poloma slam Champion
  • 2010 Chico Invitational Slam Champion
  • 2010 San Diego Grand Slam Champion
  • 2010 San Francisco Grand Slam Champion
  • 2010 Member of the San Diego Poetry Slam Team (Regional Champion/6th ranked team in the nation)
  • 2010 Individual World Poetry Slam Slam Champion
  • 2017 National Poetry Slam Champion (as part of the San Diego Poetry Slam Team)[19]

References

  1. 1 2 "Rudy Francisco Shares Truth in Poetry". The Daily Nexus. Retrieved 2017-05-13.
  2. ↑ parker.reed@iowastatedaily.com, Parker Reed. "Rudy Francisco performance review". Iowa State Daily. Retrieved 2017-05-13.
  3. 1 2 "Rudy Francisco Takes Spoken Word to New Heights – Voice and Viewpoint". sdvoice.info. Retrieved 2017-05-13.
  4. ↑ Francisco, Rudy. "Page Info". Facebook. Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  5. ↑ Button Poetry (2015-11-23), Rudy Francisco - "My Honest Poem" (Button Live), retrieved 2018-07-30
  6. 1 2 Chaney, Sam. "National Poetry Month: must-read contemporary poetry". UNF Spinnaker. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  7. 1 2 Spoken-Word Poet Rudy Francisco Performs His Poem "Complainers", NBC, 2018-03-02, retrieved 2018-04-17
  8. 1 2 "Darren Criss Appears On "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon"". Headline Planet. 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  9. ↑ "Poet Rudy Francisco Visits SMCM". thebaynet.com. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Interview: Rudy Francisco, The Artist Room - CMYK". CMYK. 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Book Circle Online (2018-03-29), Rudy Francisco discusses "Helium" | Book Circle Online, retrieved 2018-08-05
  12. 1 2 3 "Rudy Francisco". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  13. ↑ "Reaching an emotional high with "Helium"". Pipe Dream. 2017-11-27. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  14. ↑ "Button Poetry's Rudy Francisco's first book triumphs". The Crow's Nest. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  15. ↑ "Helium by Rudy Francisco". Button Poetry. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  16. ↑ "Congratulations to San Diego Poetry Slam, the 2017 National Poetry Slam Champions! – Poetry Slam Inc". poetryslam.com. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  17. ↑ "6 Teams You Don't Want To Miss At the National Poetry Slam". 303 Magazine. 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  18. ↑ "Button Poetry". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-08-05.
  19. ↑ "San Diego Poetry Slam Team Celebrates National Championship Win – Voice and Viewpoint". SD Voice. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
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