Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author, playwright, and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem "One Today" for Barack Obama's second inauguration. He is the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person and at the time the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Life
He was born in Madrid, Spain on February 15, 1968. His family had just left Cuba. Then the family went to New York. After that, they moved to Miami, Florida. He grew up there.

Blanco graduated from Florida International University in Civil Engineering in 1991. Then he got a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 1997. 

After 1999, he traveled and lived in Guatemala and Brazil. He taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Central Connecticut State University. Later, he returned to Miami and lived there. Now he lives in Maine. 

In January 2013 he read his poem "One Today" at the second inauguration (swearing-in ceremony) of America's President Barack Obama.

His work has appeared in some magazines. These include The Nation, Ploughshares, Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly Review, New England Review, and Americas Review.

Awards
 1997 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for City of a Hundred Fires
 Florida Artist Fellowship
 2006 PEN Open Book Award (formerly known as Beyond Margins Award) for Directions to the Beach of the Dead
 1988 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
 John Ciardi Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference
 Residency Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

Works

 "Somewhere to Paris", Poetry Foundation 


How to Love a Country. Beacon Press. 2019. ISBN 978-080702591-8


Anthologies




 Related pages 
List of poets from North America

References

Other websites
 "Richard Blanco", TRES Review, Jack Anders Summer 2004
 Biography 
 Readings by the poet 

Category:American poets
Category:Living people
Category:1968 births