Finna
Poems
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Finna
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Narrated by:
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Nate Marshall
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Written by:
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Nate Marshall
About this listen
Sharp, lyrical poems celebrating the Black vernacular - its influence on pop culture, its necessity for familial survival, its rite in storytelling and in creating the safety found only within its intimacy.
“Terrific...illuminates life in this country in a strikingly original way.” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR • The New York Public Library • Tordotcom
Definition of finna, created by the author: fin·na /ˈfinə/ contraction:
(1) going to; intending to [rooted in African American Vernacular English]
(2) eye dialect spelling of “fixing to”
(3) Black possibility; Black futurity; Blackness as tomorrow
These poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives and other oppressed people in our current era of emboldened white supremacy, and the use of the Black vernacular in America’s vast reserve of racial and gendered epithets. Finna explores the erasure of peoples in the American narrative; asks how gendered language can provoke violence; and finally, how the Black vernacular, expands our notions of possibility, giving us a new language of hope: nothing about our people is romantic and it shouldn’t be.
Our people deserve poetry without meter. We deserve our own jagged rhythm and our own uneven walk towards sun. You make happening happen. We happen to love. This is our greatest action.
©2020 Nate Marshall (P)2020 Random House AudioWhat the critics say
“Simply outstanding poetry.” (Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist)
“I am thankful for the honesty and self-examination in this work, yes. But even beyond that, I am thankful for a speaker who speaks as my people might, yelling across a parking lot or during a card game. I am thankful that this, too, is a part of the honesty this marvelous collection is in pursuit of.” (Hanif Abdurraqib, author of Go Ahead in the Rain and A Fortune for Your Disaster)
“Nate Marshall’s terrific new book, Finna, contains poems that jump from tough to witty to tender. Written in a streetwise vernacular, these pieces about what it means to be a Black man in America feel the beat of rap and the burden of history. His search for the ‘Nate Marshall origin story’ illuminates life in this country in a strikingly original way.” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)