RE Log Spring 2018

SPRING 2018 Ransom Everglades LOG 37 Renowned poet Richard Blanco shared with Upper School students his incredible journey from Cuban immigrant in Miami to inaugural poet at President Obama’s second inauguration. Blanco, one of just five people to read a poem at a U.S. presi- dential inauguration, read from his works during the December 2017 assembly at the Lewis Family Auditorium. When President Obama invited him to write a poem for his inauguration in 2013, Blanco joined elite company that includes Maya Angelou and Robert Frost. For the event, he crafted “One Today.” Blanco attended Christopher Columbus High and then pursued engineering at Florida International University. He worked for several years as a civil engineer before returning to FIU to earn an MFA in creative writing. His first book, City of a Hundred Fires , received national acclaim and allowed him to pursue poetry full time. Blanco told RE students how his struggle to find his home, place and identity in the United States – as a Cuban immigrant, Hispanic and gay man – influenced his poetry. “The poem is, in a way, a response to the questions of home,” he said. “The greatest gift of the inauguration was real- izing that I was home all along, that my story was part of the American story.” Blanco has taught at American, Georgetown and Wesleyan universities; received a number of honorary doctor- ates; and won a host of poetry prizes and awards. After the morning assembly, members of RE’s poetry club escorted Blanco to lunch. He remained on campus that afternoon to serve as a guest lecturer in a number of classes, then offered a workshop for faculty immediately after school. Presidential Poetry Obama’s inaugural poet visits Ransom Everglades