On Friday, the Hispanic Studies program hosted a poetry reading and discussion with Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet at President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Blanco was the first Hispanic, first openly gay and youngest inaugural poet in history. At the reading, Blanco debuted poetry from his newest collection, For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey.

The presentation room of the Shapiro Admissions Center was packed with students, faculty and other guests, leaving no seat unfilled. Prof. James Mandrell (ROMS), one of the event organizers, told the Justice in an email that "[t]here was a good crowd ... and people were clearly excited to have the opportunity to hear Richard Blanco read his poetry." Before the event began, Blanco mingled with the crowd and offered to take photos.Blanco actually has a connection with the University; he is friends with Prof. Alfredo Gisholt (FA). However, according to Mandrell, "that had nothing to do with the invitation." Rather, Mandrell was "able to work through Beacon [Press, Blanco's Boston-based publisher] to bring Blanco to campus."

Rather than give a traditional poetry reading, Blanco used the opportunity to share his life story, from a childhood in Miami to the struggles of finding his ethnic and cultural identity, to where he is today, a successful poet and a gay man in a happy relationship. He offset these themes of belonging and identity with his struggle to write an inaugural poem about America and what the country means to him.

Blanco started off by introducing himself as a man "made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States." His family fled Cuba when his mother was pregnant; he was born in Spain and shortly after birth, the family resettled in Florida. As a child of Cuban immigrants in Miami, Blanco described "[growing] up in two imaginary worlds," in the isolated Cuban-American community of his parents and in the wider world of the America he saw on television.

This struggle to find a place in these two worlds served as a theme in all the poems Blanco shared with the audience. In the first poem Blanco shared, "America," the conflict between his American and his Cuban identity was reflected in the mix of English and Spanish in the poem and how the world he saw on television was not the reality of America. In "Looking for the Gulf Motel," a tribute to childhood vacations and his late father, one line, "there should be nothing here I don't remember" perfectly summarized the feeling of returning home and finding it to be completely different from one's memory. Not all of the poems were quite so serious. "Havanasis" was a very clever play on the Biblical story of Genesis. "We're Not Going to Malta" served as a more humorous look at belonging to a certain culture and trying to find a homeland.

At the end of the event, Blanco shared the three poems he had written for the inauguration. Each of the poems took a different approach to Blanco's love of America. Blanco explained that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place shortly after he received the call from Obama to participate in the inaugural ceremonies, and he was determined to write the poems as tribute to the children who died. 

"What We Know of Country," one of the poems Blanco wrote as a contender for the inauguration, focused on the contrast between history as is taught in grade school and the reality. "Mother Country," the second contender for the inauguration, was a tribute to Blanco's mother and a focus on what the American dream really is. Blanco intertwined his mother's story of being a Cuban immigrant with what it truly means to be American. The final line "it isn't where you're born that matters, it's where/you choose to die-that's your country" summed up the themes of searching for a home perfectly.

Blanco ended the event with his inaugural poem "One Today." Blanco closed his eyes while reading and his voice caught ever so slightly upon mentioning Sandy Hook. Following the poem that made him so famous, Blanco chatted with the audience and signed copies of his works.