Hear Blanco’s inaugural poem “One Today,” how he recited it to a snowman his nephews built in the back yard of his home in Maine. He still doesn’t know why the Whitehouse chose him to be the Inaugural Poet. In some ways, he doesn’t want to know. He shares his thoughts on the experience in this video, how it was both “exhilarating and terrifying,” how he thought about the snowman as he presented his poem on the West Front of the Capitol on the morning of January 21, 2013.

Jeffrey Brown talks with Richard Blanco, the poet chosen to read at President Obama’s second swearing-in, about what it means to be a part of the festivities. Blanco, a Spanish born Cuban-American, is the first Latino, openly gay, as well as the youngest poet to ever at a presidential inauguration.