Richard Blanco is one of the most celebrated American poets of his generation. Selected by President Barack Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, he was the youngest, the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first openly gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, President Joe Biden awarded him the National Humanities Medal in recognition of his contributions to American literature and culture.
Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in a working-class family in Miami, Blanco’s poetry explores themes of identity, belonging, home, memory, immigration, and the search for place. His acclaimed collections include City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to The Beach of the Dead, Looking for The Gulf Motel, How to Love a Country, and Homeland of My Body: New & Selected Poems. His memoirs, For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, have earned widespread praise, with the latter currently being adapted for television.
A distinguished educator and public intellectual, Blanco serves as the first-ever Education Ambassador for the Academy of American Poets and is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County. He has taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Wesleyan University, and is currently Associate Professor of English at Florida International University, where he earned degrees in both civil engineering and creative writing.
A passionate advocate for the arts, diversity, LGBTQ+ equality, immigrant communities, and arts education, Blanco has written commissioned poems for historic national occasions, including the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, the Boston Strong benefit concert, and numerous civic and cultural events. His work combines lyrical grace with emotional depth, inviting readers across cultures to reflect on the enduring questions of identity, belonging, and what it means to call a place home.
