Biography of blanco richard love poem
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Village Voice: Poet Richard Blanco Gets Romantic
Richard Blanco Poetry · by Voice: Poet Richard Blanco Gets Romantic
Richard Blanco joined Boston Public to celebrate the month of Valentine’s Day bygd reading a handful of poems that celebrate love, and the experiences of falling in and out of it.
“It’s a very big theme,” Blanco said of the role that love and romance play in poetry. “The loss of it, the yearning for it, all sorts of different nuances and dimensions of love– which I want to take you through with a few poems we have today.”
Blanco went on to read and discuss a few of his own poems, and poems bygd Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pablo Neruda– all of which are listed below.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do inom Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
How do inom love thee? Let me count the ways.
inom love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet nee
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Richard Blanco
More About My Story: Made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, imported to the USA
It’s said that every poet is writing one poem all their life. Figuratively speaking, this means that a poet’s body of work keeps circling around some kind of central obsession. My obsession comes down to one word—home—and all that big word calls to mind with respect to family, community, cultural identity, sexuality, and much more. It’s an obsession that began before I was even born. Let me explain. As I like to say, I was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States—meaning my mother, seven months pregnant with me, and the rest of my family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid, where I was born. Less than two months later, we emigrated once more to New York City. Only a few weeks old, I already belonged to three countries, a foreshadowing of the concerns of place and belonging that would shape my life and work. Eventually, we settled in Miami, where I was
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Announcer: This is Why We Write, a podcast of Lesley University. Each week we bring you in conversations with authors from the Lesley community to talk about books writing and the writing life. On today's episode, Lesley faculty member and former Boston Poet Laureate Danielle Legros Georges speaks with Richard Blanco, who recently visited our campus.
Richard was the presidential inaugural poet for Barack Obama and the youngest, first, Latino immigrant and gay person to serve in that capacity. A Cuban-American engineer turned poet, he is the author of a memoir and a number of books of poetry including this year's How To Love A Country. Without further ado, here's his conversation with Danielle.
Danielle Legros Georges: Richard Blanco, happy National Poetry Month.
Richard Blanco: Happy National Poetry Month to you too. [chuckles]
Danielle: Thanks.
Richard: The cruelest month as I'd say. [laughs]
Danielle: Yes, it is. Thank you for being with us at the Lesley MFA