Spoken Word artist appealing to our senses through images

 

“I was dancing in an attempt to melt the belt off of every man in the room, but I heard the truth that night.” -Alysia Harris "Cab rides and the morning after"

 

 

“We pray our killers look in the mirror and see our souls through the bullet holes they created.”

BNV14 Finals- Los Angeles "Shots Fired"

 

 

“Treated you as if you were the last molecule of oxygen inside of a gas chamber. I was good to you.” –Rudy Francisco “Scars/ To the New Boyfriend”

Poetry Slam Champion Rudy Francisco is in full release mode when he gives the audience a full on detour of how he once loved, but the only thing he’s avoiding is "cupid." He takes this poem a step further by being so descriptive to the point where we were forced to replace our organs with his words. Our eyes became his love. Francisco couldn’t define how loving his ex-girlfriend ruined him because according to him, love has no definition.  “Scars/To the New Boyfriend” is a new found step to closure in bad past relationships for all. As famous musician Stevie Wonder would say Francisco “sign sealed and delivered” the passionate love he once kept enclosed for his ex to her new significant other, no longer wanting to be hers. Reflecting on their past love he sees the happiness his ex-lovers new boyfriend impressed on her all along and is now content with giving it away.  Rudy Francisco describes an image of love so clear we can see it in our past relationships.  Rather the relationship was one with a friend, family or spouse. He sets the tone that we can love uncontrollably. “There is nothing rational about love./ Your love stutters when it gets nervous./ Your love trips over its own shoe laces,/ Love is clumsy and my heart refuses to wear a helmet.” My interpretation of Francisco’s words depicts why we are human which, is unexplainable. Francisco meant we have no reason to define being in love because we have no control over love. When we love, love is in full control over what it does. So, because of love we can’t control how we feel about someone else. With that being said, Francisco claims that he is no longer stopping his self from loving. In this poem he has fully put his wall down.

 

 

When comparing the images in “Scars/To the New Boyfriend” to the images in Forman’s “Poetry Should Ride the Bus” the reflection is a twin. Often in open form poetry better known as Spoken word the noun the writer refers to is repeatedly used with different verbs.  When referring to free verse poems, “such lines can derive their rhythmic qualities from the repetition of words, phrases, or grammatical structure” (762).

The word play of verbs gives life to love and poetry two things that are not capable of breathing yet, takes our breath away. For example, Francisco states “your love trips over its own shoe laces.”  Whereas, the first line of “Poetry Should Ride the Bus is “poetry should hopscotch in a polka dot dress” (627). In which, both lines create an image of a real life experience. “The most common images in poetry are visual; they provide verbal pictures of the poets’ encounters – real or imagined – with the world” (622). In poetry each experience becomes an image.