This is the first collection of poems by Rudi Francisco that I have read. His writing is thought-provoking, honest and intriguing.

In this novel, Francisco creates words that don't exist in the English language. Words that mean 'giving yourself advice'  or 'to take a perfect picture'. This shows so much creativity and I loved reading about these made up words.

My favorite part of the collection is part 3 and the poem Climate change.

"This smile is the first gift my//mother gave me." --It usually happens, I'll Fly Away by Rudy Francisco

Poetry requires vulnerability, a willingness to give the intimate pieces of life we can all connect to on a deeply personal level. Rudy Francisco has turned that vulnerability into an art form. This collection of poetry covers topics from climate change to racial relations in the US to what it means to be a parent, and every poem features a gorgeous depiction of pain or hope--or both, beautifully intertwined. Francisco offers so much of himself that it is impossible to finish without feeling like you've gained a new friend in this world. 

In "Drowning fish," Francisco discusses the reality of mental health in an accessible, beautiful, but painfully raw way. As soon as I read it, I immediately knew that everyone should read this poem at least once in their life, but probably more. "My parents" transported me back to my childhood and convinced me--finally--that someone else understands what it feels like to grow up in a household made of thousands of miles. 

Francisco uses a premise of "words that do not exist, but should" to preface his poems, a tactic that I found more effective in certain moments than others. He also uses erasure poems, which I personally am not a fan of. However, the rest of the work was so artfully crafted that these elements did not detract too significantly. Each section was well-defined and topically harmonious, making it easy to flow through them.  

Overall, this was a gorgeous collection that left me with so much to think about and consider. I think that's the hallmark of good poetry: the kind that steals your breath but gives you an ocean of new thoughts and perspectives. Rudy Francisco lived up to every expectation--no matter how high--with his second poetry collection, and I fully and enthusiastically recommend this book!

As I loved Francisco’s first book ‘Helium’, I was very excited to read this new book of him. I must say, I loved this one even more than helium.
The poems were so current for our times now. Topics such as Black Lives Matter and mass shootings are being mentioned. 
This was a very interesting poetry book that will make you think a lot about everything!

This book was a stunning breath of fresh air in a smog filled literary world. Francisco has no qualms about telling the hard truths, but they are written in such a way you almost want to beg him to tell you more. A beautiful second book from this author, it screams "Yeah things have sucked. Some days are bad. But mostly things are good, even if we have to keep fighting." Absolutely loved this.

Thank you NetGalley and Button Poetry for sending me the e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

I enjoyed this poetry collection way more than "Helium". Let's put everything into perspective first, two years ago when I was starting to read poetry, I found "Helium" and decided to give it a shot since I had heard good things about it. I didn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping, but I really liked Rudy's prose and decided it keep reading his works. Best decision ever. He rocks!

Man, I really enjoyed this book. Rudy made such an amazing work!! I cannot wait for this book to get out and purchase it. 

In "I'll fly away" the author talks about depression, racism, police brutality, family, between some other topics. He also includes some well-known songs and new words that are not in the english dictionary ♥️ I was a little bit worried at the beginning, because I wasn't connecting with the author. But after a few pages in, I couldn't stop reading!

Highly recommended!!

I really love Rudy Francisco so much!! I have watched several of his slam poetry and have read Helium as well, and I am still in awe at this man's writing, It's so sharp, on point and hits home. They're even so beautiful and simple, it kept me crying early in the morning when I  finished this book. To be honest, helium hit me harder, but this book didn't fail to surprise me. I love his poems through all of my heart, and I cannot wait to see what he and the entire team of Button Poetry would bring next <3

Where do I even start with this!?!?

Once again, Francisco uses his perfectly chiseled words to rip out hearts, inspire hope, and demand change. Helium was beautiful but I'll Fly Away is his grown up manifesto to the world.

 Buy. This. Book. Immediately. I promise there is no way you will be disappointed.

Just a note, but I *strongly* recommend people to watch Rudy Francisco perform spoken word poetry before jumping into I'LL FLY AWAY. It will absolutely influence how you read this collection of poems and give you a sense of how these poems are to be read and heard.

Another thing to consider doing is to read these poems out loud, because Francisco certainly wrote these poems with the voice in mind. Some poems were more powerful than others, but through all of them, the reader could get a sense of how these poems were meant to be delivered with their rhythms and lyricism.

I'LL FLY AWAY is a stunning collection of poems that plays with the constraints of language, particularly the absence of words that describe familiar feelings and experiences for many. Francisco begins his collection highlighting the limitations of the English language before leading into his first made-up word, "nolexi," to describe this very experience of having an untranslatable word. With every made-up word, Francisco explores various themes and ideas related to that particular word, doing a phenomenal job bringing out a distinct emotion with every poem that relates to its associated word. I was especially taken to the poems that evoked hope and happiness (and there's a word he made: felenter!), especially evoked when he brings up Zoey, his daughter.

This is a collection of linguistic possibility I found thought-provoking. While some poems felt a little simpler than others, I often found reading them aloud again brought back their strengths. You can easily breeze through these poems in one sitting, but that would take away from the experience Francisco set up for readers—more specifically, listeners—to also challenge and play with language.

I hadn’t heard of Rudy Francisco before, what about you? I was first attracted by this really pretty cover and by the title. I took my time to savour this book and I do not regret it. What I like about poems is that they make you think, they make you feel, dream and reading one poem a day is very easy to do. The poems discuss many themes such as race and discrimination, personal development, death, love and hate, etc. I felt like most of them were quite relatable and true. It is kind of like an admission of the truth, nothing new but things that should be said and acknowledged. I liked how the author made poems by erasing words from some song lyrics. It was original. Moreover, Rudy Francisco challenges the concept of language and its adequacy to talk about our experiences by suggesting words that could/should be added to the dictionary and, after reading their definition, it’s true that some could be useful. For example, "Felenter (Noun) Definition: Someone who finds joy in things that people believe to be mundane." The verbs were more difficult to imagine in a sentence but I like the concept. After finishing this collection of poems, I went on YouTube to listen to this poet and I enjoyed it a lot. I recommend both reading this book and listening to his poems.
4/5

Thank you Netgalley for this amazing book. First of all I really like the poetry style of Rudy Francisco and I really loved this book. The writing style is amazing and the the book has something for everyone. The poetries are so deep and they beautifully portray so many matters and issues that we sometimes face in life (like racism, ptsd, heart break) and on the brighter side it is so heart warming and contains beautiful poetries about love, beginning of a new day and it really overwhelms me with hope and joy. One thing I loved about the book is that it has some verbs and definitions written before some poetries which kind of gives you the clue about the core of the poem. it’s a very quick read. Overall i highly recommend it and it is amazing.

"How beautiful is it to grind yourself into sand, offer the grain of you to anyone willing to listen, hoping they will carry your debris to places you will never go."

Rudy Francisco once again has written a collection of poetry that speaks to the hardest parts of life. He writes of love and fear, racism and heartbreak. I'll Fly Away is formatted by Francisco introducing lists of words that do not have a place in the English language and basing his poems after the words, all of which invoke strong feeling. His poems are full of humanity and pull on your heartstrings.

My personal favorites were "My Parents" and "Drowning Fish" , both of which I connected personally with.

Francisco also includes black out poetry in this collection, which is an interesting medium and enjoyable if you know the original works.

Overall, this collection was fantastic and filled with emotion, which is Rudy Francisco's specialty. If you are looking for something to tug at your heart and make you think, I would highly recommend I'll Fly Away .

Thank you to NetGalley and Button Poetry for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I enjoyed Rudy Francisco's previous collection, Helium, so I was excited to read this one as well. I was immediately drawn to the definitions format Francisco used to try and create new words to more fully communicate his experiences. The first poem in the collection did such a wonderful job of capturing what it feels like to have difficulty finding the right words, especially when facing a language barrier, with someone you care about. Francisco beautifully and poignantly addressed a range of topics, including racial injustice and human connection, as well as emotions from joy to despair and many in between. I look forward to reading more of Francisco's work in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book of poems was a nice, light read, while still taking on difficult subjects such as racism, divorce, and mental health. 

I really enjoyed how every few pages had a word, followed by the description. It was a nice touch and really made the collection of poetry more unique than others.

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.

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. 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.

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.

I ll fly away is a book you must read. This is a book for all the readers, who want to something new, something original, something unique and sometimes interesting, this is the one for you. 
I'll fly away starts with words that doesn't exist in English language but they must be. She will define each word from that list and a poetry follows. I liked how the book is written is this format. The poetries are beautiful and pleasing. The erased version of poems and songs are absolutely delightful, I absolutely loved the erased version of Perfect by Ed Sheeran.

Rudy Francisco has masterfully scripted the best lines which will stay with you forever. My favorite part of this collection are the words "that currently do not exist in the English language, but they should". The best example of this is the word Felenter. Rudy defines the word Felenter as "one who finds joy in the things that people believe to be mundane".  His prose to emphasize this point makes my smile: "I want the kind of happiness that you can smell in my clothes, and a smile so big, you can still see it when I'm walking in the opposite direction." This is an incredibly uplifting read that I plan to return to again and again for inspiration. Keep this collection close by for a boost when you really need to "Fly Away".

In this stunning poetry collection, Rudy Francisco makes up his own words to express different things about his life and the world. He writes with so much honesty and raw emotion that you can't stop reading until you consume and absorb every single word. Every time he writes about something serious, he says it in a way that is so straightforward that it knows the air out of your chest.

When I ran into this collection on Netgalley, I was so excited to read this that I dropped everything I was reading and I dove in and didn't get out until I read the last word. It was such an impactful and stunning poetry collection, and I really recommend it. It's a short book but one with so much impact.

I knew I would love this book. Francisco is one of my favourite poets.

I wasn't prepared. These poems run the gamut of emotions. I fully understand what the kids mean when they say " all the feels" now.

There are poems I'm going to share with the people I love. There are poems that I MUST take into my classroom. There are poems I want to print out, and post where I can see them every day.

Thank you Rudy.

I loved his first book so much I was so excited to read this. I think he was able to bring light on some tough issues that need to be addressed and talked about. I didn’t love it as much as his first one, but it was still good.

A solid follow up to the absolutely amazing Helium. Sometimes I feel like the poems are missing the in person performance elements, but overall really well done.