Rudy Francisco

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's Def 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 attended Alliant International University in San Diego. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and pursued a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology.^[13] Francisco was a resident assistant at his school and started hosting open mics.^[12] He was invited to other open mics and met other poets through them.^[13] He worked as a statistical analyst and completed three years of a Ph.D. program before quitting to do poetry full-time.^[1][13]

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]

Francisco has said that the slam community allows one to 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 has a five-year-old daughter.^[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]

• Getting Stitches (2013)
• Scratch (2014)
• No Gravity (2015)
• No Gravity Part II (2016)
• Helium (2017)
• I'll Fly Away (2020)
• Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky (2023)