More about the book
As a Cuban-American, questions of Where do I belong? and What is Home? had always been at the center of my being and my poetry. But after relocating to Hartford in 1999 to teach at Central Connecticut State University, and also traveling for the first time through Europe and South America, those questions became even more complex and bewildering. They began to haunt me, whether sitting in a Roman piazza at dawn or walking through Venice past midnight; staring into the mouth of a volcano in Guatemala or into the eyes of lamb heads at a market in Barcelona; whether driving through the Brazilian countryside or down a causeway in Miami; visiting an aunt in Cuba or an old friend in Vermont; whether listening to a neighbor in Hartford playing Bach, or sitting quietly in my room watching the dust fall. These moments became the poems in this collection. They journal my journey both inward and outward into the world, questioning the idea of home in the foreign and the familiar, in the old and the new, through memories and hopes of what was yet to be.
“This heartfelt collection of poems is an endless pursuit of what we hope to become.” —Multicultural Review
Richard explores the familiar, unsettling journey for home and connections, those anxious musings about other lives: “Should I live here? Could I live here?” Whether the exotic (“I’m struck with Maltese fever …I dream of buying a little Maltese farm…) or merely different (“Today, home is a cottage with morning in the yawn of an open window…”), he examines the restlessness that threatens from merely staying put, the fear of too many places and too little time. The words are redolent with his Cuban heritage: Marina making mole sauce; Tía Ida bitter over the revolution, missing the sisters who fled to Miami; his father, especially, “his hair once as black as the black of his oxfords…” Yet this is a volume for all who have longed for enveloping arms and words, and for that sanctuary called home. “So much of my life spent like this-suspended, moving toward unknown places and names or returning to those I know, corresponding with the paradox of crossing, being nowhere yet here.” Blanco embraces juxtaposition. There is the Cuban Blanco, the American Richard, the engineer by day, the poet by heart, the rhythms of Spanish, the percussion of English, the first-world professional, the immigrant, the gay man, the straight world. There is the ennui behind the question: why cannot I not just live where I live? Too, there is the precious, fleeting relief when he can write”…I am, for a moment, not afraid of being no more than what I hear and see, no more than this:…” It is what we all hope for, too.
*Winner of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN / American Center
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Reviews
“The universe of Richard Blanco is a place of lush, exhilarating landscapes and kindred souls. Its sweep is both magnificent and intimate in detail. And it shines most gloriously in his latest offering, Directions to The Beach of the Dead. His words are honey from Ochún herself.—Liz Balmaseda, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer
“Richard Blanco has written a strong and beautiful book that takes his fine poetry forward to a new and exciting level. While these poems possess a keen sense of past and place, they move beyond nostalgia to the rich difficulties of the nowhere but here that is his clear milieu.—Elizabeth Alexander, Yale University (Inaugural Poet President Obama 2009)
“For those of us who became devotees of Richard Blanco's first, prize winning book, City of a Hundred Fires, for its luscious, eloquent voice, this second volume is reason for celebration. Mr. Blanco's Directions to The Beach of the Dead is absolutely breathtaking and gorgeous in its quest for place, family, self-discovery. This book is as fresh as it is invigorating. Mr. Blanco's voice is unmistakably brilliant and original. For all poetry lovers, this will be a difficult book to top—Virgil Suarez, author of 90 Miles: Selected and New and Palm Crows
“In his new volume of poems, Richard Blanco extends his reach and strengthens his grasp. Part travel diary and part journal intime, Directions to The Beach of the Dead takes Blanco into uncharted territory, emotionally as well as geographically, showcasing his great gift for the precise notation of sights, thoughts, and feelings. This book confirms Blanco's place as a strong and distinctive voice in American poetry.—Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Columbia University
“Reading this collection gave me the thrilling feeling I was trespassing on the intimate correspondence between a lover and a beloved -- and filled me with envy. Ah, to be the receiver of such exquisite letters! Ah, to be the object of such exquisite love!—Sandra Cisneros, author of Caramelo, The House on Mango Street, and the poetry collection Loose Woman
“The universe of Richard Blanco is a place of lush, exhilarating landscapes and kindred souls. Its sweep is both magnificent and intimate in detail. And it shines most gloriously in his latest offering, Directions to The Beach of the Dead. His words are honey from Ochún herself.—Liz Balmaseda, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer
“This work is about 'the paradox of crossing, being nowhere yet here,' where travelers, family members, and lovers seem perpetually in a state of 'almost touching,' of 'learn[ing] to adore [their] losses.' Heartfelt and elegant, these exquisitely crafted poems place Blanco in that pantheon of poetas from the Americas who have flourished in the Old World and the New. Directions to The Beach of the Dead -- spanning three continents -- marks Richard Blanco as arguably the most cosmopolitan poet of his generation.—Francisco Aragón, author of Puerta del Sol
“In Directions to The Beach of the Dead, Richard Blanco enacts the exile's great conflict in his astonishing, unerring poems of distance and desire, refuge and release. At once pensive and restless, full of both abandonment and abandon, this book is ultimately a journey to the haunted, utterly familiar places in our own hearts. Lost Cuba, newfound love, immemorial time -- this soulful poet gives us all that is at once impossible to have ever owned, and yet ever within
the reach of our having known.—Rafael Campos, author of Landscape with Human Figure
“Richard Blanco is a troubadour of Exile. . .with aching stories of its displacement, loss and nostalgia, -- that uniquely Cuban reverie -- for what might have been.—Ann Louise Bardach, author of Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana
