Poem '17' By Rudy Francisco

Confidence is key

Confidence is the key to success. The poem,”17” by Rudy Francisco, demonstrates this with a speaker talking to his former self about a time when he had a crush on Rachelle Moss. Initially, he doesn’t have enough confidence to do anything about it. Rudy describes himself in negative ways but then begins to see himself as important and not an accident. Rudy gives himself the confidence to ask out his crush and she says yes. Francisco uses diction to develop the theme that people should have confidence in themselves because everyone is important. The poem contains a lot of imagery to demonstrate its theme. Rudy Francisco is an awkward 17-year-old that has a crush but no confidence. One day a girl named Rachelle Moss walked into Rudy's first block class and immediately caught his eye. At first, Rudy doesn’t have any confidence and is too scared to even go speak to her. Rudy doesn’t see himself as worthy of other students like athletes in his class. Rudy describes that he is “a tsunami of awkward moments”. He sees himself as “a wire hanger” and describes that people like him “don’t become captain of the football team”. This imagery shows us that he does not have the confidence

Rudy sees himself as an accident. Rudy describes himself as not the best-looking or the biggest, or the smartest. When someone starts to see themselves positively, they begin to think they are not an accident and start to focus on what they're good at. Rudy flipped a switch in his mind about his mentality, he went from seeing himself as an awkward weird person and learned to embrace his strengths. Rudy says “you’re an apple on a pine tree in a room full of lemons.” This shows how Rudy is starting to see himself in a positive light. The confidence is starting to come in because Rudy wants to see himself and have others see him