He was a U.S. inaugural poet. Now Richard Blanco is Miami-Dade’s first poet laureate
For the first time in its history, Miami-Dade County has a poet laureate.
Richard Blanco, who grew up in Westchester as the son of Cuban exiles and has used the city as a source of inspiration for his work, was named Miami-Dade’s first poet laureate on Thursday — just in time for National Poetry Month (April).
Blanco, 54, was the country’s fifth inaugural poet and read his moving poem “One Today” at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013.
“Richard Blanco is a champion of poetry, diversity and equity, a believer that communities unite through the arts,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava in a statement. “By serving as our county’s first poet laureate, Richard will be our muse and guide, connecting residents to artistic resources, events, and opportunities.”
Blanco, who has moved back to Miami from Maine and is currently an associate professor at Florida International University, said he was honored and excited.
“Miami is in a way my muse and inspiration,” he said from his home in Miami Beach (he still has a part-time home in Bethel, Maine, with his husband, Dr. Mark Neveu). “So much of my poetry and my memoir focused on recording and sharing the story of living and being part of this city.”
Blanco was born in Madrid but emigrated to New York 45 days later, then eventually moved to Miami with his parents and older brother, attending Christopher Columbus High School and earning a degree in civil engineering and a Master of Fine Arts at FIU.
In such poetry collections as “Looking for the Gulf Hotel” and “Directions to the Beach of the Dead,” he used Miami and other parts of Florida to examine ideas of cultural and sexual identity, family and immigration, and the lonely dislocation of being caught between the Cuba of his parents’ memories and the reality of life in Westchester.
He expounded on those themes in his funny and heartfelt coming-of-age memoir, “The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood,” which is now in development for a TV series with Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company. His most recent collection, “How to Love a Country,” explores gun violence, racism and LGBTQ issues as well as ongoing questions about immigration. You can also find him on Twitter at @rblancopoet and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardBlancoPoetry.
Blanco isn’t quite certain how the details of his new post will work out yet, but as a liaison for the arts, he hopes to work with the mayor’s office on inclusive poetry projects and to form alliances with Miami Book Fair and O, Miami poetry festival, which is in the middle of its programming for National Poetry Month.
He definitely wants to start a cultural exchange of some sort to represent all of Miami’s stories — Cuban, Venezuelan, Haitian, Colombian, Puerto Rican and beyond — and to make poetry and other literature more available to the people of Miami.
“I grew up in a house without books, in a working-class immigrant exile family, and I had little access to the humanities and to literature” he said. “I hope to bring poetry to people who haven’t been exposed to it.”
Moving back to his de facto home town has been terrific, he said.
“I think I had a quarrel with Miami when I left, because it was changing so much,” he said. “I felt displaced. Now I can appreciate it in a different way. It’s my Miami, still. I’m enjoying how much more cosmopolitan it is. And the arts! There’s so much now. This program is a sign of all the reasons it will always be home to me.”
He only has one minor complaint: “I wish I’d bought a house sooner.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 10:21 AM.