FINNA Poems

A number of influences make themselves heard in Nate Marshall's readings of his own poems. He uses a variety of voices--ranging from that of a South Side Chicago homie to that of an elite university graduate. They are all his own authentic voices, and he explores the varieties of his own existence with them--as well as those of the "alternate" Nate Marshalls who come up in an online search. One of those is a white supremacist, and Marshall explores his relationship with this other self in a series of "origin story" poems that investigate the ideas of race in America. He is a young poet worth getting to know. "Finna," as he explains, is a variation of the phrase "fixing to," a particular future tense. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2020]