I  recieved a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

This collection is honest, raw and beautiful. This book is an experience. 
My favorite piece is "My Honest Poem".

I have been a little familiar with Rudy Francisco's work through Button Poetry and I was always wowed by his Spoken Word performance.
Having the opportunity to review this book is a gift. The poems are deeply personal and engaging and made me reflect about points like love, racism, mental health and how it must feel like to be socialized as a man. 
Rudy's point of view is very engaging and the construction of the poems are superb. I specially liked his view on God.
I fully recommend this book for when you are feeling reflexive and just want to readdress some issues from a different, creative and witty point of view.

Helium is a mix of personal, political, love and cultural poetry. Rudy Francisco shares his thoughts and feelings in a stunning open, honest and sometimes raw manner. He has a breathtaking way with words that kept blowing me away. I was impressed by his analogies, for me they were the most striking aspect of his poems. He has an impressive ability to compare, voice his opinions and show his emotions with clarity while adding an abundance of beauty in the process. His poems give his readers a fascinating glance into his world and I'm grateful I had the chance to experience this.

Rudy Francisco skillfully plays with rhythm. Every time he gets it exactly right, which gives his poems plenty of strength. He makes sure the reader understands the message and is being spellbound by the way he delivers it at the same time. Helium is a gorgeous collection of poems, it contains small masterpieces that can and should be read again and again. I highly recommend this fantastic work of art.

The emotions I felt while reading this collection surprised me. For a book off of Net Galley, I was blown away.
This poetry collection covers race, gender, mental illness, religion, and love in an open and raw collection of poems that speak to you and force you to confront your demons in such a passionate way.

Every poem struck home and made me sit back and ask myself "Who am I now that I've read this?"

From “And Then After”:
I heard there’s a
woman in Palestine
who makes flower pots
out of used teargas grenades
From this I learned
the explosion
is not how the story
has to end.

From "Sinking":
I held you
the way a boat holds water.

I should have left when I
felt us sinking.

From "Strength":
I convinced my fist
that it was a flower.
I relaxed, it bloomed
and I forgave you

before you even apologized.

These are just a few poems that each explore a different theme in Helium. Each one taught me something whether it was about the world or about myself, I felt like a better person from reading these poems. I highly recommend this collection; it's unfiltered emotions and wide range of subjects offers something for every one.

Rudy Francisco is a poet to keep your eye one. You should look him up on YouTube and listen to his spoken poetry and slam poetry, it will give you the chills.

Ok so I'm a newbie when it comes to poetry having only read Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur before this collection so can honestly say I don't have much to compare to but I really liked this collection of poems by Rudy Francisco having never heard of him before.

I thought the poems were raw, relatable and really packed a punch.  I will most definitely re-read them and feel that by doing so I will get something different from them again.

I will admit that some of the poems did go over my head a bit but I think poetry will always be like that for me and hopefully the more I read them the more I will understand!

I would definitely recommend this collection and will certainly be looking for this author's future work.

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.  All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Rudy Francisco is a black spoken-word poet from San Diego. His book has about sixty poems, a mix of longer poems (about 1-3 pages) with quick 1-2 line poems. This is love poetry—sensual passages dot the text. This is also no-holds-barred protest poetry. It made me say “F**k yes.”

Yet from the first page, I was also chuckling. The book has genuine laughs, and some poems have creative points of view—for example, “the day has been asking about you.” Reading the whole thing was an experience—the poems are carefully ordered, and you can see the narrator’s growth from the first poem to the last poem. Early in the book, after a couple of love poems, I made a note to myself: “These poems felt somewhat generic—about how woman makes the poet feel, not about her in any specifics…” But—hang in there, reader! The narrator figures this out about himself, too.

The narrator’s growing into a different man. He figures out (in my words, not his) that he’s been taught to treat women as interchangeable. “We often forget that sexism is a family heirloom that we’ve been passing down for generations,” he notes. For his own sake, as well as the sake of women, the narrator strives to live differently.

Some favorite poems: “To You,” “And Then After,” “Skin II,” “Liberty” (just—wow), “Rifle II,” “In the Voice of Hip-Hop,” “Strong,” and “I Bet the Trees Are Thinking.” Francisco is writing about experiences of anxiety and depression (though he uses those labels sparingly) and the specific anxieties of blackness and masculinity.

Read “My Honest Poem” to learn about Mr. Francisco’s personal story. Read the poem “To You,” about how sexism gaslights women, to its phenomenal last line.

Francisco’s main metaphor is water. Water kills and drowns. It’s to be feared, as water or love. Helium (words? hot air from love poems? for sure, the book title) is escape, a way to break the surface of toxic masculinity—firmly entangled with racism—and breathe. Water is old, sexist ways. (I’m still admiring the line, “I held you the way a boat holds water.”) Water might be people in general. Water causes anxiety, or it is also anxiety. Waves are water and an outdated (hair) style for black men. Yet water is also scarce and disappearing, as in California droughts worsened by climate change. It’s precious, as in a half-empty glass. Drink or you’ll die, because water is life.

And read, read, read.

Rudy is by far one of my favorite poetry writers aka sharers of life via artistic beauty.  My oh my, I love how he weaves me in and out of his world, his emotions, his pen drops, and moments of saying Listen Up, Message. This read is a delight and I’ll be rereading it again and again, as it also inspires me to write more as well. Double snaps and kudos.

This collection of poems by Rudy Francisco is both beautiful and thought provoking. His insightful creations are heart breaking, yet honest. His descriptions of anxiety and self-esteem will be appreciated by many. 'Helium' would be a great text for high school students.

What a great read, it was one of those things I had to read out loud to myself to give it the depth it deserved and to feel the proper weight of it. Can’t recommend it enough and looking forward to more work by the artist.

I started out really enjoying the cleverness of these poems, but a little of them goes a long way, and this book ends up having far too many cliched, tired poems. Very disappointing.

Poetry is like a well-written book. Some prefer thrillers, some prefer romance. Helium is a welcome combination of both.

The book has four parts that try to take you through love, loss, America, and introduce you to Rudy. Raw. Happy. Sad. Rudy. While it’s difficult to stun with every line and every page, Francisco’s work is a welcome change from the current trend of prose. Some poems will make you think, some make you indifferent. But all of them will make you feel something.

Helium
Image – Button Poetry

My favourite out the entire collection is titled ‘Water’. I am yet to read a poem as stunning as that this year. Dive into the book an swim in it slowly. Let the words and pages take you on a journey.

If you’re in a hurry, let this book slow you down, let it make you rethink. Pick up this book and gift it yourself and someone you l

Rudy writes his poems based on his own life experience, therefore it is impossible to be able to connect to every single one of his poems. However, some of the topics of discussion (i.e. toxic masculinity, being a black man, his experience with depression, etc) allow for, at the very least, an intro to a bigger conversation that we all need to be having. Poems such as "Skin II", "Adrenaline Rush", "Meal", "Liberty", "Rifle II", "Mercy", "Chameleon" and "Margin" are about the struggle of being a black man, and/or about toxic masculinity. "Water", "Ouch", "Drive", "Horizon", "Instructions", "My Honest Poem", "Machine", "Sip", "When People Ask How I'm Doing", Vanish", "Museum", "Haunted", "Windows and Mirrors", "Forgiveness", "Capacity", "Strength", "Silence" and "Yes" are about the times when he was going through a low bout of depression; there are also some about working towards overcoming the bad thoughts, about bettering yourself. I haven't mentioned every single poem here, I was simply trying to highlight a few, namely as examples of the themes I mentioned above. I'm not saying that Rudy's book is one-hundred percent perfect - the poem "Complainers" is a testament to that; I personally have trouble with some of the lines, but I think overall the general idea of the poem is good. I'd say that, as a whole, the book is very much worth a read. If only just to have your point of view challenged a bit. I highly recommend it.

This was an incredible and outstanding collection of poetry. I absolutely loved each and every piece of this collection and Rudy Francisco has become a poet who I am going to watch. This collection looks at everything from sexism to toxic masculinity, racing and current American society for people of colour. If you're looking for a collection that is light and fluffy, this won't be the one for you. That said if you're looking for a collection that makes you examine the world around you in a different way and see the world through someone else's eyes. Of course, I gave this 5 stars, it's a wonderful collection. Thank you to the publisher, Rudy Francisco and Netgalley.

Beautiful pieces of poetry. The poems are very touching. They bring so many emotions to live.

I have read many different contemporary poets this year and I either love their poems deeply or I feel nothing. This book weirdly fits in the middle because even if I found some poems really captivating, I couldn't feel the first part of the compilation that dealt with heartache and depression. I usually tend to like poems that speak from that perspective but in this case I felt like reading any other piece of literature. 
I disliked a lot the poem "Complainers" as it tends to minimize the suffering of some because it's not as horrible as some people that lost their limbs, broke their collarbones or was punched by a kangaroo. This actually bothered me because as someone who suffers from depression I have fought hard to learn that my struggles are valid, and this poem felt like an attack.
Poems I did like: "To the Man Standing on the Cornes Holding the Sign That Said "God Hates Gays"" and "Roulette."

In summary, I think some poems were really great, others not so much. A lot went missing going from oral performance to paper.

The first time I heard the name Rudy Francisco was when I came across one of his poems, featured below, and when I saw Helium on Netgalley, I didn’t think twice before getting it. It’s fantastic, I loved almost every poem written in Helium. It’s raw, beautifully written and it might even make you shed a tear or two. Rudy is talented when it comes to describing life situations, emotions and feelings with words. If you have an hour to spare, reading Helium will be well worth your time

Reflections on race, gender, mental illness — and love, naturally!

Your God stole my God’s identity.
So next time you bend your knees,
next time you bow your head
I want you to tell your God
that my God is looking for him.
(“To the Man Standing on the Corner Holding the Sign That Said ‘God Hates Gays'”)

Once, a friend of a friend asked me
why there aren’t more black people in the X Games
and I said, “You don’t get it.”
Being black is one of the most extreme sports in America.
(“Adrenaline Rush”)

Some days I forget that my skin
is not a panic room.
(“My Honest Poem”)

###

The first poem in HELIUM, “Water,” took my breath away – and more or less set the tone for the entire volume.

I have a terrible time reviewing poetry; I can’t tell you whether a poem is “good,” technically speaking, only if I liked it. Even then I fear I’m a poor barometer, since I’m as likely to understand it as not. 

But Rudy Francisco’s poetry is accessible AF. Also daring, insightful, passionate, and unfiltered. I especially adore the poems that tackle mental illness – which is no surprise, as I struggle with anxiety and depression myself, and thus find this genre incredibly relatable and applicable to my own life. 

Many of these pieces appear in Parts I and II; but it’s those poems centered on social justice issues (Part III) that really stunned me speechless. “Adrenaline Rush,” “Rifle II,” “To the Man Standing on the Corner Holding the Sign That Said ‘God Hates Gays'” — these poems will stick with me long after HELIUM claims its permanent home on my bookshelves. Not that it will stay there indefinitely: this is a book I’m likely to revisit again in the future.

Though Francisco is at his best when writing about social justice issues – toxic masculinity, misogyny, religious intolerance, art as resistance, police brutality, etc. – I cared less for his love poems. Though I suppose it could just be the jaded, 39-year-old widow in me silently screaming, “Please don’t be a love poet!”

I also actively disliked “Complainers” (to paraphrase: if you’ve never had to saw your own arm off with a rusty butterknife, stfu!), which is kind of a bummer: the second-to-last poem in the book, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. 

I rarely read physical books anymore – I’m more an ebook kind of gal – but I found the font a little on the small side, and unnecessarily so, since many of the pages are dominated by white space. Borderline hard-to-read for my nearly middle-aged eyes. 
These are all fairly minor complaints, though, given the sheer genius and raw emotion embodied in HELIUM. 
 

Contents

I
Water
Good Morning
Ouch
Page
Drive
Horizon
Instructions
My Honest Poem
Machine
Correctly
12 am
Sip
Petal
To the Girl Who Works at Starbucks…
Alternatives to “Bae”
If I Was a Love Poet
Again 

II
Sinking
When People Ask How I’m Doing
Mess
Vanish
Why Did You Leave?
Scars
Museum
To the Random Dude…
Haunted
How Did You Lose Her?
Chameleon
Windows and Mirrors
Lopsided
To You
To Him
And Then After 

III
Waves
Skin II
Adrenaline Rush
Accent
98
Meal
Margin
Liberty
To the Man Standing on the Corner Holding the Sign That Said “God Hates Gays”
Brother
Sister
Rifle II
Simeona
In the Voice of Hip Hop
I Bet the Trees Are Thinking
Roulette
Mercy 

IV
Forgiveness
Capacity
Strength
Cookout
Welcome
Silence
Complainers
Yes

Great poetry book, I loved it and I would definitely recommend reading it!

I thoroughly enjoyed "Helium" by Rudy Francisco! His poetry is concise, powerful, personal, political, witty, truthful, all in one. What a talented guy!!

I would definitely recommend this book to others and look forward to reading more from this author.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Button Poetry - this never would've hit my radar without you!

Absolutely fantastic and a collection that can be used in such varied and complex situations. An instant favorite.