A Look into the Life of Richard Blanco

At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Major Jackson reviews Richard Blanco's memoir The Prince of Los Cocuyos : A Miami Childhood. You'll of course recall that the accomplished poet was thrust into the celebrity spotlight last year when he was tapped by President Obama to recite a poem during his second inauguration. Since then, Blanco has written about the circumstances that led up to Obama's invitation, the process of writing his poem “One Today," and the big day itself. With the publication of his memoir, Blanco reaches deep into his past to chronicle the events that shaped him as a poet. Jackson starts the review by looking at the lead up to the inauguration:

In its press release, not only did the Inaugural Committee call attention to this son of Cuban immigrants as the youngest inaugural poet, but also as the first gay man and Latino to be thus appointed, a shining example of “American Exceptionalism,” a term that had feverishly made the rounds in newspapers, social media, and on Sunday morning talk shows since Obama’s first campaign in 2008. The idea is that in this particular democracy, with its emphasis on equality, liberty, and self-reliance (so the well-worn covenant goes), any person with some grit, whether indigenous or newly arrived to these shores, can grasp hold of his share of America’s abundance. Even so, his official anointment by the highest office in the land caused Richard Blanco to question whether his selection was owed to his talents or to his multiple identities. In For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey, Blanco wrote, “After all, I did fill a lot of ‘boxes.’”

Other qualifications aside, Blanco, a fine poet with a cultivated sense of symbolist imagery pitched perfect for such an occasion, was commendably up to the occasion. In Whitmanesque fashion, radiating oracular authority, his inaugural poem catalogs and celebrates the variegated lives, cultures, languages, and landscapes that constitute our nation. Its guiding conceit is the morning sun that alights on each person, just as the vision of an egalitarian and just country highlights the agency of every citizen. “All of us as vital as the one light we move through,” reads one affecting line. And even so, his own ascendance was unprecedented; Richard Blanco became a celebrity before our eyes. Curious as so many of us were to know more about the Cuban immigrant who arrived on the highest of world stages — an awe-inspiring example of what makes our nation unlike any other — the publication of his memoir is no surprise.

From there Jackson discusses Blanco's formative years, his Cuban heritage, growing up in Miami, and his awakening sexuality:

Caught as he is between two worlds, Blanco wonders from a young age, “Who am I?” — especially because his tastes and urges are not conventionally masculine. Early on, his grandmother, who is suspicious and disapproving, monitors his hobbies (rug-quilting!), and later she bribes Ricky to serve as the date for a quinceañera, the Spanish celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday and passage into womanhood. Even in his grandmother’s absence, Blanco polices himself; thinking twice, for instance, on that family vacation, about skipping in excitement on his way to Cinderella’s castle. But this self-censorship becomes increasingly difficult. Blanco’s attempts to restrain his urges and to assume a heterosexual mask make for some of the most intense scenes in the book. And yet he generously acknowledges the importance of family in shaping and defining who he is today. In one of the most gorgeous utterances in the book he writes, “[they] made me their prince and loved me before I knew how to love anyone, or myself.” Such reflection and insight is plentiful all the way through, and yet never reduces the book to a series of maxims for would-be émigrés.

Read on at LARB.