Rudy K. Francisco (born July 27, 1982) is an American spoken word poet and writer.[1][2][3][4] He has won several poetry slams and written six books of poetry: Getting Stitches, Scratch, No Gravity, No Gravity Part II, Helium, and I'll Fly Away.[5] He made an appearance on TV One'sVerses and Flow and performed his spoken word poems "Complainers" and "Rifle" on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.[6][7][8][9]
Early life
Rudy Francisco was born and raised in San Diego, California and is of Belizean decent.[10][11] 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][12]
Francisco was inspired watching HBO'sDef Poetry Jam. He began to go to open mics in his area until they were closed due to gentrification.[8] With a group of local poets and activists called "Collective Purpose", he opened an open mic known as Elevated in San Diego, which has been open for over ten years.[3]
Francisco first got into performance poetry after going to open mics and watching a show that featured the poet Shihan and falling in love with the style.[13] He says that reading The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten was pivotal moment in his life as a poet.[14] Francisco has performed in competitions as well as shows around the world.[12]
Francisco wrote his debut poetry book Getting Stitches in 2013, then Scratch in 2014, No Gravity in 2015, and his first full-length book Helium in 2017, which was published by Button Poetry. It took Francisco a year and a half to write the collection of 58 poems.[13]Helium received positive reviews.[5][15][16] 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.”[13] Themes for Helium include race, class, gender, love, and self-reflection.[13] His style for his poems encompasses "personal and political narratives through an honest and humorous approach."[10]
Francisco is the founder and current coach of the San Diego Poetry Slam Team, which won the 2017 National Poetry Slam Championship.[17][18]
Francisco performed his spoken-word poem "Complainers" on his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 1, 2018.[6][7] Rudy Francisco is the first to perform a full-length poem on the show. Many of his poems are on YouTube, some of which, like "Scars/To the New Boyfriend" have accumulated over two million views.[19] He has also grown a large following on Instagram with over 250,000 followers.[20]
Personal life
Francisco has said that the slam community allows one be a part of a family, saying “some of my closest friends are people I have been on teams with or competed against. It is what keeps me coming back around.”[13]
Francisco toured the UK in May and June 2018.[21] In early June of 2018, Button Poetry announced on Facebook that performances scheduled for India with Sabrina Benaim were cancelled due to "scheduling and organizational issues."[22] He performed at the August 2018 slam poetry competition in Chicago, representing the San Diego team.[13] Francisco went on tour in October in the UK with fellow poets Neil Hilborn and Sabrina Benaim.[21] On April 30, 2019, he performed at Beltway Poetry Slam in Washington, D.C. He was the host city coordinator for the May 13, 2019 Individual World Poetry Slam in Southern California.[13]