Complainers
by Rudy Francisco
The Poem
This week, we thought we’d give you something a bit different. We wanted to share a slam poem and thought we’d share a favorite. That’s why we’re offering “Complainers” by Rudy Francisco. It combines performance with smart writing, and it’s a pep talk turned poetic, laced with bold and bursting metaphors. Most importantly, though, it’s a clarion call to live bravely.
Pivoting on witty juxtapositions and powered by a string of strong comparisons, “Complainers” is a poem about not simply taking your lumps but choosing to embrace them. The final lines of Francisco’s poem embody its message best: “The human heart beats approximately four thousand times per hour. / Each pulse, each throb, each palpitation is a trophy engraved with the words ‘You are still alive.’ / You are still alive. / Act like it.”
So here’s to Francisco, and here’s to leading lives worthy of our hearts’ extravagant trophies.
Its Colors
With each poem we share, we ask Claude 3 (Sonnet) to generate a palette of five colors that embody the poem’s content and mood. Claude shares its color choices with us via hexadecimal codes, and we share them with you via the palette at the top of the post. Here’s Claude’s explanation for today’s colors:
#B83C3A - A deep, bold red representing the raw intensity of trauma and tragedy
#E8D072 - A warm, burnished gold evoking perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity
#5E7D7E - A grounded blue-green capturing the wisdom and perspective gained from difficult experiences
#BCB8B1 - A soft, heathered gray suggesting the muted tones of sadness and silence in the wake of tragedy
#FFF2CC - A bright, luminous yellow embodying hope, gratitude for being alive, and the chance to rebuild
This palette aims to capture the range of emotions in the poem - the visceral pain of tragedy, the quiet stillness it can bring, the hard-won resilience forged from suffering, and ultimately the reverence for life and motivation to persevere with renewed perspective. The bold yet earthy tones reflect the rawness of the subject matter grounded in appreciating what remains.
Things to Notice
Although Francisco doesn’t necessarily employ a wide range of poetic techniques in “Complainers,” he leans deeply into the techniques he does use. Here are the three we found most notable:
Metaphor (interesting comparisons adorn nearly every line, moving the focus from concrete to abstract and back to concrete repeatedly throughout the poem; Francisco’s metaphors also add emotional weight to the poem)
Juxtaposition (witty contrast turns the poem on its head after Francisco’s first few examples—”So go ahead. / Tell me that you’re having a bad day.”—to juxtapose the sincere tragedies of our lives with their smaller counterparts)
Hyperbole (many of Francisco’s examples are not hyperbole—they are legitimately tragic—but his descriptions of the less-tragic examples are built upon hyperbolic metaphors in order to further juxtapose the real tragedies with the imagined)
And although each of these three techniques are vital to the poem’s overall tenor and effect, we’re interested in exploring Francisco’s metaphors, as they’re both loud and powerful. Here are three we found interesting:
“The morning is just a town house burning to the ground, and the snooze button is a fire extinguisher.”
“How blessed are we to have tragedy so small it can fit on the tips of our tongues?”
“Life is a gym membership with a really complicated cancellation policy.”
One of the effects of Francisco’s metaphors is the dramatization of the mundane in order to overshadow the significant. Francisco uses hyperbolic comparisons (like the first one listed above) to juxtapose the degrees of tragedy a person could face, thereby emphasizing his central message: “You are still alive. Act like it.”
“Comparisons” also elicits some interesting questions, though, and we’d like to share two we continue to mull over:
Some have argued that Francisco’s poem belittles the effects of anxiety and depression or unfairly characterizes challenges he has no realistic means of actually measuring. What do you think? Did you feel as if Francisco’s poem was belittling? Why or why not?
Francisco’s poem communicates its message by playing with extremes. (As one example, assault is juxtaposed against bad traffic.) Undoubtedly, many human tragedies fall somewhere within the dichotomy Francisco presents, so where is the line between a real and perceived tragedy? Does that line vary from person to person?
As always, if you stumble across something brilliant, or if you have a question that lingers with you, leave us a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Classroom Context
Francisco’s poem does contain one instance of strong language (“shit”) and brief references to assault and murder. Additionally, as noted above, critics of Francisco’s poem have argued that it belittles those experiencing anxiety and depression. For these reasons, we urge teachers to consider their teaching contexts before using the poem with students.
However, for those who feel the poem is appropriate for their classrooms, it’s a powerful choice for engaging students in discussion and sparking interest in students who might otherwise avoid grappling with a poem at all. Francisco’s performance—and the simple opportunity to watch a poem rather than read it—draws reluctant readers into the content and provides every student with an on-ramp for meaningful participation.
“Complainers” is also an excellent choice for teaching each of the poetic devices outlined above (metaphor, juxtaposition, and hyperbole) because it contains multiple examples of each.
When using this poem to teach, we suggest beginning by having students identify a powerful line—for most students, this will generally be an example of a metaphor. From there, we might have students prod at the essence of the line’s power and its effect on the poem as a whole. At the point of dissecting a line’s effect, students usually need some guidance. We’ve found that the best way to support students’ analyses is to contrast (juxtapose, perhaps!) their examples with non-examples. In other words, we might ask, “Why does Francisco compare the morning to ‘a town house burning to the ground’ rather than just saying the morning was frustrating? What’s the difference between those two versions of the same line? Why are those differences important?” (This is also generally a good opportunity to point out Francisco’s use of hyperbole, as students usually don’t identify it on their own.) Students’ responses to these guiding questions often lead them toward conclusions about Francisco contrasting or emphasizing important ideas, which can then segue to a discussion about juxtaposition.
That said, regardless of how you decide to use “Complainers” in your classroom, we’re confident it will catch your students’ attention and leave them considering Francisco’s challenge: live!