An interview by Jennifer Maritza McCauley
Ariel Francisco is a marvel. Francisco’s poetry stirringly strikes the balance between the colloquial and the traditional, the hip and classic, the witty and the mournful. In his newest collection All My Heroes Are Broke, Francisco examines the worlds of the wandering poet, immigrant families, the lure and grittiness of South Florida and New York, and the appeal of our heroes, whether they are canonized writers, parents, strangers or rappers from Minnesota and New York. With warmth, swaggered grace, and searing stanza, Francisco’s poetry envelops you, makes you ponder and root. Francisco’s work takes you to the heart of why poetry matters: because enduring language and accessible truths matter. He is also a teacher, an ardent literary citizen, and an advocate for poetry in all its forms.
Francisco is the author of All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017) and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). He was born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, and completed his MFA at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2016, Gulf Coast, Washington Square, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches in South Florida.
In this interview from 2017, we talk about assembling a poetry collection, finding your voice, music, and “broke-ness” amongst other topics.
ORIGINS
I tore through the pages of this book! Could you talk a bit about the sequencing process for the poems in All My Heroes Are Broke? How did your original vision of this book change or develop as you ordered the poems?
FRANCISCO
The sequencing was something that I worked on constantly. Even when I only had, say, half of what turned out to be the final manuscript, maybe only thirty pages, I was trying to find orders and patterns and recurring themes and images and trying to make sense of them. Pretty early on, it became clear that Florida and New York were where most of my poems wanted to live, so have the book be in two sections made a lot sense to me. But figuring out what to put in each section, how to distribute the emotional load, if that makes sense. There was also the challenge of where to place the longer poems, trying to create some kind of pace from the opening poem to the last line. It was really just a crazy multi-layered balancing act. But also kind of fun. It forced me to look at the poems as objectively as I could. I cut a lot of poems out of the manuscript while I was trying to come up with an order. Some just weren’t up to par, but a few just didn’t make sense among the other poems, no matter how much I liked them. Hopefully they fit in another future manuscript.
ORIGINS
The romanticism of place is captured, satirized, and rendered with loving precision in this collection. The speaker is an astute observer, keenly cognizant of his surroundings but also aware of their limitations. Would you talk a bit about what sort of cohesion (or lack thereof) you wanted to create with this speaker’s voice?
FRANCISCO
Well I definitely wanted a sense of continuity in the speaker’s voice so that it’s (hopefully) clear that it’s the same speaker throughout the book. This way, there’s an accumulation of the experiences and emotions seen and felt throughout the poems. If there’s a later poem where the speaker is bummed out at the bar, we know this is the same speaker who works that shitty job in an earlier poem, etc.
ORIGINS
Throughout the book there’s such a wonderful sense of movement, an immediacy to the speaker's observations. He's physically moving, but also darts around nuanced images; there’s an interest in the reader really seeing what he sees. We sit with him in bars, ride on trains, are flooded by bus lights, and take note of vagabonds and streetlamps. Why (or why not) are you drawn to the wandering poet aesthetic?
FRANCISCO
I think I’m drawn to it because being in different places opens up my brain to seeing and understanding things differently. Even mundane experiences can take on importance if a particular setting facilitates that. I don’t think I could write poems if I just sat at home all day because what attracts me to writing is trying to make sense or meaning out of my daily life. There’s also a certain perspective that comes with solitude I think. Not that’s it’s always a good thing but these instances are a way of spending time with myself and I find that easier (or more manageable) in these kind of “wandering around” situations, as opposed to just sitting at home.
ORIGINS
You write about the power and loneliness of NYC in the tradition of Hart Crane’s “Brooklyn Bridge,” and explore the “ruse” of Miami. The speaker seems like a bridge between the two cities---he’s critical, honest, loving and funny in his skewering. Would you talk a bit about why you wanted to discuss the relationship (and your own relationship) with New York and South Florida?
FRANCISCO
New York is my hometown, specifically the Bronx. But I’ve always thought about it more as my homeland the same way the Dominican Republic is my dad’s homeland and Guatemala is my moms. I know that might seem kind of dramatic but it’s true: it’s not just where I was born but it’s where my parents and their families first came to America, it’s where my siblings and almost all of my cousins were born, where a lot of my aunts and uncles still live. To me, it’s where my family is from, which is a big part of the poems that I write. Same with Miami, it’s where I grew up and where I’ve lived most of my life whether I like it or not (I don’t like it). The bridge between the two is me, a kind of self-mythologizing I guess.
ORIGINS
One of the thematic centerpieces in this book is the tension between money and art, culture and cash. Why were you drawn to “broke-ness” in this book?
FRANCISCO
Well, because I’m broke. I grew up that way and now as an adult I still am. It sucks. You grow up being told of all that’s possible in this country, your parents believe it and teach you to believe. They tell you all these stories about their struggles back home and how lucky you are to be born here. They struggle so their kids can have a better life, right? But that hasn’t been the case and that seems to be true for a lot of people in this country. It’s always been something that’s concerned me but I never saw much poetry that concerned itself with this.
ORIGINS
The speaker explores masculinity and how it functions, informs, resists and speaks through the speaker, anonymous men, and a father and grandfather. In “The Young Men Are Too Tired to Die,” you include the lovely line, they “wear…work below [their eyes]…” Why did you want to explore masculinity in this book, and perhaps Latino masculinity specifically?
FRANCISCO
Masculinity is such a bizarre thing, I’ve never really understood it. Maybe that’s the answer right there.
ORIGINS
Some of the inspirations that appear in this book are Frank O’Hara, Basho, James Wright, Harts Crane, Bukowski, Keats, Robert Bly, Emily Dickinson and more. Your poetry pays tribute to them, but also features the singularly exciting voice of Ariel Francisco. How have your inspirations--your heroes--influenced this book? Why did you choose to actively engage with other poets in this work?
FRANCISCO
I think the key for me has been not trying to imitate their style or voice but rather engaging with their work explicitly. That directness helps me preserve my voice. As for why, I’ve loved when I’ve read other poets doing. It’s always cool to me to see a poet I love make references to another poet I love. James Wright and Campbell McGrath are the first poets I read who do this (or actually I think I found out about James Wright from a Campbell poem…).
ORIGINS
I gotta say, these poems got straight-up bars. You give your epigraph to indie rapper Atmosphere and Biggie Smalls gets a nod. What is your relationship with hip hop and/or music, if music affects your relationships with poetry?
FRANCISCO
The title is also a line from a song called “Scope or Claw” from the rapper Sims (of Doomtree). I’ve always loved rap and hip hop. I could go on for days about that but I think the biggest influence it’s had on my writing is subject matter. A lot of my favorite songs are basically about money, whether it’s the desire for more or the lack there of (“Pimp the System” by Dead Prez is an all time favorite). All genres have love songs and all that but in my experience hip hop is the only music I’m familiar with that consistently and explicitly deals with capitalism essentially. And those are struggles and desires that I can constantly relate to.
ORIGINS
Do you have any new projects planned?
FRANCISCO
I’m finishing up my second manuscript (which is tentatively titled after another rap lyric), and finishing up book length manuscript of translations of my Dad’s poems.
Ariel Francisco is the author of All My Heroes Are Broke(C&R Press, 2017) and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he completed his MFA at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets,The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2016, Gulf Coast, Washington Square, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches in South Florida.