The talented writer and poet Richard Blanco is full of firsts. He was the youngest poet ever to read at President Obama's inauguration back in January 2013. He was also the first Latino, the first immigrant and first openly gay person to have that same honor.
His varied cultural upbringing and life in Miami is explored in a new memoir called The Prince of Los Cocuyos. He makes a stop in Chicago as part of that book tour. Recently, he discussed his journey to the life-changing moment where he became a part of history.
Windy City Times: Hello, Richard. Let's go over your background. You were born in Madrid?
Richard Blanco: My tagline is made in Cuba, assembled in Spain and imported to the United States. My mom left seven months pregnant with me so I was conceived in Cuba and born in Madrid; then, 45 days later, after I was born, we immigrated to the United States.
It was a beginning of things that would assist my writing and my life.
WCT: Did you always want to be a writer?
Richard Blanco: No, but I wanted to be everything. As a kid, I would draw flowers and spaceships. I had a wide range of interests. Writing came later in life. Some of that came from the socioeconomic status. I was from a working-class immigrant family. I wasn't going into a life in the arts. We didn't talk about Picasso around the dinner table.
My grandmother, who you met in the book, was homophobic so you can imagine if I told her that I wanted to study art it would not have gone over very well.
WCT: How was your family about you coming out of the closet?
Richard Blanco: I came out much later in life—when I was 25. By then, my grandmother was older. It wasn't too much of an issue. I think, overall, it was a normal experience and not too traumatic. For many years it was the pink elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about. The family had to go through their own coming-out process. Now it is perfectly fine and wonderful. I have been with the same partner for 15 years now.
WCT: You live in Maine together, correct?
Richard Blanco: Yes, a small rural town in Maine for about six years now.
WCT: Did public speaking grow out of your writing?
Richard Blanco: Yes, I just stepped up to the plate. Being the inaugural poet opened up so many doors for me, and also for poetry. Suddenly, I was being asked to be a keynote speaker at nursing functions, law firms and LGBT groups. I have always been a storyteller. The power of storytelling is wonderful and people respond to it very well. People don't want to hear a hum drum speech at an engineering firm.
Storytelling unites us no matter what we do or where we are from. Ultimately people hear their own lives in the story.
I feel very excited because I speak about poetry. I get to clear up misconceptions about it that so many Americans have, including myself, when I first started writing. I like turning people onto the genre so they realize they don't have to be scared.
WCT: Speaking of scared, were you nervous during the inaugural speech?
Richard Blanco: I expected to be nervous but I wasn't. In the weeks leading up to it I was just worried about writing the poem. I have to buy clothes and go through security clearances. I was being interviewed a lot and there was a lot of hoopla. It wasn't until that morning that it all sunk in—that a gay, Latino immigrant kid is going to read a poem to the entire United States, and it's me!
It hit me what an incredible honor and responsibility that it was. The moment of the inauguration is an amazing moment. It is a significant moment that we all come together as Americans every four years for. It is America renewing its vows to the very founding principals of this country. I was really swept away with being part of something much larger. I realized it wasn't about me, my poem or Beyonce—not even the president but it was about our country. It was not about having to look good or be great. That allowed me to enter the moment more spiritually and more balanced.
There was a weird psychological response and failure was not an option. I was not going to trip over my words or freak out. You rise to the occasion and that is exactly what the president said when we met him the oval office in May after the inauguration. He said that people rise to the occasion in moments like that.
WCT: How do you feel about the job he's done on immigration?
Richard Blanco: I haven't been able to follow it in the last 18 months with all of the speaking engagements and writing three books but what I notice is there is attention to immigration and a lot of roadblocks. I think he was criticized in the same way during the first term by the LGBT community and not doing enough. Slowly it ramped up and I think it just takes time with any social issue like that.
What I try to do is change the rhetoric and the conversation. I think that is what Freedom to Marry did. They changed the language and I think that is why we see such great strides and changes in attitudes.
That is one of the things that I discovered after walking away from the inauguration, that I have a legitimate place in America. I'm not Peter Brady but I am a part of the great American story. The story is not done yet. America is still a story that is being written. Luckily we live in a democracy that we hopefully get to write a sentence in that story. There may be chapters we wish we could erase but we can't. We need to have a little patience with all of that.
I think the president has done as much as anyone can do. I don't understand all of politics, even though I am calling you from Washington, D.C. right now. I do know from afar that the execution is more difficult.
WCT: How long did it take to write this memoir?
Richard Blanco: I started about four years ago. I wrote it out of pure curiosity. I found out there were a lot of background stories to the poems I had written. I wanted another vehicle to tell about these pieces that were inside the poetry. I felt a sense of relief and awe while doing it. I let me grandmother really live and be a complete character as well as the rest of my family. It was very satisfying.
WCT: What will be the format of this event in Chicago?
Richard Blanco: I don't think it is quite set, but it will be focused on the memoir. I always share a poem or two because they relate to each other. I usually like to end with the inaugural poem. What this book does is gives a sense of this precocious kid with a homophobic grandmother and all of his quests grows up to be honored in an amazing way. It is an American dream story. I like to flash-forward from age 17 to the big moment.
WCT: There will be a Q&A after, I'm assuming?
Richard Blanco: I am sure there will. After this book tour I will be working on the inaugural poem being turned into a children's book. I am excited about working with kids and turning them onto poetry early in life. I will do a book of poetry after that and then a follow up to this memoir because it ends very abruptly.
WCT: What would you say to the little Riqui of the past from what you know today?
Richard Blanco: Two things: One, I have to borrow because they hit it on the nail for a gay child—"It gets better." You know you are different and gay but you don't have language to that. So I would say to have faith in who you are and things will get better.
Number two is all that you are seeing now—to just revel in the wonder of it. All the little things that seem insignificant are part of a grand story for you. It will be your life source as you get older so pay attention.
That is a wonderful question because the whole book is about me going back and talking to little Richard. I describe the book as a Cuban Wonder Years or, maybe, Running with Mangos!
Blanco will be at the Northwestern University School of Law's Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago Ave., on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 for the general public; visit chicagohumanities.org .
