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Selected by President Obama to be the fifth inaugural poet in history, Richard Blanco joined the ranks of such luminary poets as Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, and Elizabeth Alexander. Standing as the youngest, first Latino, first immigrant, and first openly gay person to serve in such a role, he read his inaugural poem, ""One Today,"" as an honorary participant in the official ceremony on January 21, 2013. Blanco was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States, meaning that his mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of the family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid, where he was born. Only forty-five days later the family emigrated once more and settled in Miami, where Blanco was raised and educated. The negotiation of cultural identity and universal themes of place and belonging characterize his three collections of poetry, which include City of a Hundred Fires (awarded the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press), Directions to the Beach of the Dead (recipient of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center), and Looking for The Gulf Motel (winner of the Patterson Poetry Prize, a Maine Literary Poetry Award, and the Thom Gunn Award). His poems have also appeared in the Best American Poetry, and Great American Prose Poems series, and he has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Fresh Air, as well as major U.S. and international media, including CNN, Telemundo, AC360, the BBC, Univision, and PBS. Blanco is a fellow of the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, recipient of two Florida Artist Fellowships, and a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. A builder of cities as well as poems, he is also a professional civil engineer currently living in Bethel, Maine.
In this charming and engrossing book, Richard Blanco traces his personal and literary development that led to his appointment as the inaugural poet. The high drama here is the backstage look into the pressure and process of writing the poem itself and the thrill of reading it to the world. --Billy Collins In this moving, intimate memoir Richard Blanco reveals how a poet works--where the words he uses, the images he creates, come from. This is a book not just about one poet's journey, but about the power of poetry to capture moments, to transform lives, and to illuminate truths. --Anderson Cooper Blanco showed great courage...and it's courage that is the most important of all virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. --Dr. Maya Angeleou In a testament to the beauty of the American spirit, Richard Blanco recounts his inspiring journey--from the traditions of his childhood to the magic of an historic presidential inauguration. Through the lens of this one man's amazing personal journey, we are transfixed by another uniquely American story. --House Leader Nancy Pelosi Richard's story is at once deeply personal and uniquely, universally American. The specifics of our lives may not be the same, but we all share a relationship with a country that is an ongoing work in progress, and as Richard elegantly reveals through his experiences, what we do defines that work for those who follow. America shapes the people within her, and in return we shape America. This is a portrait of a nation and its people, each working to make the other better. --Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union With an engineer's eye for design and a poet's ear for truth, Richard Blanco tells the fascinating story of one poem's journey from a kitchen table in a small-town Maine to the grand stage of a president's inauguration. Blanco's memoir is a powerful reminder that we all pur
