Finna by Nate Marshall
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
Language in all its variations is on brilliant display in Nate Marshall’s forthcoming poetry collection, Finna. Known widely for his deft skills as a slam poet from Chicago, Marshall continues his lyrical styling on the pages of this collection. Many verses feel as if they beg to be in the air, spoken aloud. Finna is divided into four sections that call back and forth to each other through exploration of familial relationships, identity, racism, and the role of language.
my hope is like my language is like my people: it’s Black
& it’s brown & it’s alive
& it’s laughing & it’s growing & it’s alive
& it’s learning & it’s alive & it’s fighting & it’s alive
& it’s finna
take on this wide world
with a whole slang for possibility. (102)
The first section is titled “The Other Nate Marshal,” and focuses on identity, including a fictionalized white supremacist “Nate Marshall” persona. I like this idea that there are so many others that carry your name, the thing that identifies you as you, but are so radically different in reality. Marshall is in conversation with these others throughout the sections as he grapples with common experiences they may share, but spaces in society various Nate Marshalls will be relegated to based on our racially-governed society.
i feel you Nate Marshall.
i’ve left places & loves
when they told me they loved
a Nate Marshall
i didn’t recognize. (15)
There are moments where he touches on gentrification and co-opting of African American food culture, such as in the poem, “nigger joke” and the use of the iconic fried chicken. The section ends with his acknowledgement that some will take offense with his use of language, syntax, but he makes the point that words have different feelings depending on whose mouth is speaking them, and perhaps our fear and anger is based more on our own insecurities about what is different than us.
perhaps our rage
at the other is just the way
we fill what we don’t know
about ourselves. (20)
Section two is “My favorite Word” and it is a celebration of rap, with allusions to lyricists and their songs, mothers, and afro-culture, including hairstyles. Even though the first section is about names, this one feels more personal with touches of his neighborhood, the tension of familial relationships. More experimental styles of verse are present. It feels fun, but serious at the same time.
In “the bald fade,” we are brought to the neighborhood friend who cuts the speaker’s hair with, “... the 90s cut up front, neat. the back graphics. the rounded fro. the cornrow lining. the Michael Jordan/Daddy deluxe. my head a democratic laboratory for nap possibility.” (31) It is a stream of consciousness style poem that reaches back to the 90s while honoring the way black neighbors take care of each other.
As the poems unfold, they become a generational commentary on the stories and lies told, like the plantation in “ode to vacation.” The facade of the vacation, the facade of the plantation, the story perpetuated by black people still working the plantation all wind their ways through the short, staccato lines. Then comes “the valley of its making,” which hovers around the language to unite, the language to define “personhood,” the language that makes “they,” and Marshall asserts that you cannot categorize a people because of race based on the categories of another race, they “...deserve poetry without meter. we deserve our own jagged rhythm & our own uneven walk towards sun.” (54)
Section three, “Native Informant” brought me to the world of Carl Sandburg, just for a moment. There is a celebration of Chicago with all its beauty and struggle present in Marshall’s poems I always feel in Sandburg’s work. Marshall’s love of Chicago pulses through all of the sections, but this one especially shows it. This is also the section that challenges who owns language and how it is wielded. This is the section that exposes all the lessons a black grandmother must teach their grandson to survive a racist world.
“when america writes”
about Black life
they prefer the past
tense. (86)
These poems do not shy away from politics, violence and the role of the media in sensationalizing it, or police ignorance of black lives. Marshall slips between free verse and accepted canonical structures to show artistry does not have to be bound by accepted convention, much like living your life.
Finna closes with a self-titled section. The opening poem suggests the notion that you can stay “woke” to all the violence and injustice in the world while still eating your favorite foods, celebrating with your favorite people, and living your best life. It also covers the legacy of slavery- its artifacts in museums, the dream of running North, redefining the black experience based on moments of white clarity, and reparations. The speaker gives voice to the struggle of trying to find our place in the world, trying to mold ourselves to what people say we are supposed to be and allowing our “...power be dulled by [our] fear of fitting.” (101)
Marshall fittingly ends the collection with a single line, on a single page, “For my people, the ones I love & especially the ones I struggle to love” (104) which encapsulates the hardship, strength, faith, and hope the collection breathes out in every word, every line, every stanza.
Finna
Poems by Nate Marshall
128 page. 2020
About Carrie Honaker
Carrie Honaker is a writer currently based in Panama City Beach, Florida. She is a voracious reader and kitchen sorcery addict who found her inner writer at the Blue Ridge Writing Project in 2010. Most days you can find her plowing through a book, writing or dabbling with a new recipe. Currently, she is working on a memoir encompassing themes of motherhood, food, and loss interspersed with family recipes. You can find her on Twitter: @writeonhonaker, Instagram: @corkdorkva, and on her blog Strawbabies and Chocolate Beer.
