Richard Blanco
“An engineer, poet, Cuban American… his poetry bridges cultures and languages – a mosaic of our past, our present, and our future – reflecting a nation that is hectic, colorful, and still becoming.”
– President Joe Biden, conferring the National Humanities Medal on Richard Blanco
Homeland Of My Body: New & Selected Poems
Beacon Press, Release date: October 24, 2023.
A rich, accomplished, intensely intimate collection with two full sections of new poems bookending Blanco’s selections from his five previous volumes.
In this collection of over 100 poems, Richard Blanco has carefully selected poems from his previous books that represent his evolution as a writer grappling with his identity, working to find and define “home,” and bookended them with new poems that address those issues from a fresh, more mature perspective, allowing him to approach surrendering the pain and urgency of his past explorations. Pausing at this pivotal moment in mid-career, Blanco reexamines his life-long quest to find his proverbial home and all that it encompasses: love, family, identity and ultimately art itself. In the closing section of the volume, he has come to understand and internalize the idea that “home” is not one place, not one thing, and lives both inside him and inside his art.
Upcoming Events
November 30, 2023
Poetry at Literati: Richard Blanco with Ruth Behar.
Literati Bookstore. Ann Arbor, MI
More info >>
December 2, 2023
Homeland of My Body book launch.
Books and Books. Miami, FL
More info >>
January 11-14, 2024
Key West Literary Seminar
Key West, FL
More info >>
February 3, 2024
Oregon Association Of Latino Administrators
Hillsboro, OR
More info>>
February 22, 2024
Westwood, MA Children’s Poetry Festival
February 29, 2024
St. Martins Episcopal School. Atlanta, GA
Keep in Touch
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Latest News
Village Voice: Poet Richard Blanco Explores AI-Generated Poetry
In this latest episode of Village Voice, Poet Richard Blanco joins Jim and Margery on Boston Public Radio to explore A-I-generated poetry.
“I was going to choose Halloween poems, but I think this topic is even scarier.” He said.
Blanco asked Chat GBT to generate two poems. One, in the style of his own voice, after his poem “Palmita Mia” which translates to “Little Palm of Mine.” (From City of a Hundred Fires.) For the second, he asked it to write a poem in the style of “How to Triumph like a Girl” (from Bright Dead Things) by Ada Limón.
Village Voice: Poems for the End of Summer
Richard Blanco returns to Boston Public Radio and joins hosts Gerrard Bowen and Andrea Cabral for another segment of Village Voice. They speak a little about Richard’s forthcoming collection, HOMELAND OF MY BODY, and how the concepts of home and love are ever-changing landscapes we carry within us. Tune in for Richard’s reading of his own “beach poems,” and the stories and memories that informed them.
Enjoy the poems copied below as they are read and discussed. read more…
Richard Blanco Shares the Poetry of Our National Parks
In this edition of the Village Voice, Richard Blanco recites poems to celebrate the 2016 National Park Service Centennial. For the occasion, The Academy of American Poets commissioned 50 poets from 50 states to write poems about their State Parks as a way of documenting the natural and historical sites through the poetic eye.
“A little tidbit, Campbell McGrath was my graduate school mentor in poetry. He is still the editorial voice in my head.”
Enjoy the poems listed below as they are read, and the conversation that surrounds them. read more…
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