Rudy Francisco

abettertime-abetterplace asked: You are one of my greatest inspirations, so much of an inspiration that for a paper I have to write about any american poet I chose to do it on you. We need to write about our authors background information and fully analyze a poem of our choice. I've been searching but I thought what better way to find out things than ask you myself. So I ask you this, what inspires you to write, what caused the first poem to form, and why poetry? What was life like for you growing up? Etc. Thank you so much:)

Thank you so much! A lot of things inspire me but mostly life experience. I also spend hours watching poetry and I’ve been blessed to have friends you also excel at the craft so I feel the confluence of the 2 inspires me to write, perform and further cultivate my art.  

I wrote my first poem when I was in 12th grade, it was actually a homework assignment, but I fell in love with the unabridged honesty and the high level of introspection that poetry requires of its participants. 

I was raised by 2 immigrant parents. My mother was a nurse and my father was a marine. I have an older brother and a younger sister. Due to the occupations of my parents,  I had to be independent at an early age. I learned how to do my own laundry, iron etc when I was about 8 years old. I grew up playing basketball and that served as my only outlet until I stumbled upon poetry.