I’ll Fly Away by the American spoken word poet Rudy Francisco is a poetry collection about language barriers and (mis)communication.
I'll Fly Away Synopsis
In his stunningly intimate, highly anticipated follow up to Helium, Rudy Francisco has created a collection of poems that savor the day-to-day, treating it as worship, turning it into an opportunity to plant new seeds of growth.
Language so often fails us, but Francisco has found his way around this as he creates his own words for the things our language cannot give name to.
“Felenter (Noun) Definition: Someone who finds joy in things that people believe to be mundane.”
Using fascinating metaphors to convey common emotional states these poems are an act of remembrance, and an act of believing that you dear reader, are a celebration waiting for the lights to come up.
Book review
The synopsis of I’ll Fly Away had me with the description “creates his own words”. As a linguistics graduate, I just had to read this poetry collection. The opening poem Mama Saba asks introduces the linguistic trope that plays a role in many of Rudy Francisco’s poems. I can’t help thinking though that this poem does not resonate as well with foreign language speakers. Or with young kids, as they come up with new words all the time.
First half
The new words in the first part of I’ll Fly Away have to do with death, growing up, and uncertainty. While I agree it would be nice if there were words to describe what he is talking about, the ones he came up with could be confusing for those looking for Latin and Greek roots. After a while, when the newness fades away, this whole new word invention theme gets a bit tedious and I stopped paying attention to the words.
Many of the poems are short stories that could be summaries of books. There is much more to them than meets the eye. The poems in the first half of the book resonate well with me as a reader. There is this whole story before and after the poem and you only get a glimpse. They’re about mundane situations and feelings, with a straightforward message or opinion that makes you look better at the world around you.
The longer poems are great as grand slam poems and the shorter ones as memes or flip-thinking. To me, they are not surprising or novel, but instead, they lead to recognition or an admission of truth, because yes, this is how the world works and how people feel sometimes.
I enjoy watching Rudy Francisco’s live performances on YouTube very much and I can almost hear his voice reciting the poems while I read them.
My favorite poem is Afterwards, a very inspiring and purposeful poem that fits my current mood. Quoting the first few sentences:
“One time, while I was
running errands, my car
decided to change occupations.
I assume it saw a couch
and said, “I wanna try that.”
[…]”
If you want to know how it ends, then buy the book.
Second half
I took some time to consider what I was going to say about this poetry collection and decided to divide my review into two parts. The thing is: I liked the first half of the book (except for the erasure poems) and disliked the second half. The sole reason for that is the theme of the poems.
The second half is simply too political for my taste; I read for leisure yet felt like I was reading the news. I don’t quite understand why these poems are in the same book as the earlier poems and the ‘new words’ seem to be added as an afterthought.
I’m not saying that the issues that are addressed are not serious, but rather that I didn’t expect such poems after reading the synopsis. The poems in this part of the book deal with very relevant topics like violence, discrimination, and the treatment of black people. Rudy Francisco is very outspoken about these matters. You might be the right audience for him – many reviewers seem to appreciate these poems the most – but I was not. At least not that day.
Still, there are many things in this world that I would like to fix and Rudy Francisco did draw my attention to them again.
To conclude
I did like many poems – except for the erasure poems – and even though not all of them are as strong, there are very good poems and stories in I’ll Fly Away. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether the theme of the poems appeals to you.
Interested?
Pre-order your copy of I’ll Fly Away from Amazon (available 8 December 2020).
Many thanks to Button Poetry and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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