2008 Woodie Awards
'I think that I found something that's like home'
Cuban-American poet writes about his many identities
by Corinne Clemetsen
Issue date: 2/16/07 Section: Online Exclusives
There's a complicated equation on the board, reading ?y=2 x=1 = ?50 x2 - x + 1.
Richard Blanco glances ahead, mumbles a few numbers and advanced math terms learned in classes far beyond high school and announces the answer with a chuckle - 1/3 of the cube of x prime et cetera.
The board also reads, "STAT200 Meet @ Gore 205 Today!"
"No, it's not a stat problem," Blanco says. "The stat kids are meeting Al Gore today or something."
He's not there to solve more equations, showing off his bachelor of science degrees in engineering from Florida International University. He's not there to keep telling jokes either, even though he tells many more before the presentation's over. When he's not working as a civil engineer and designing cityscapes, Richard Blanco writes poetry.
In fact, he's in Memorial Hall 108 to read some of his works - as soon as his toes thaw out, he says.
Blanco has published three books of poetry - "City of a Hundred Fires," "Directions to the Beach of the Dead" and "Nowhere But Here," which all deal with the quest for identity and a definite home as a Cuban-American.
"City of a Hundred Fires," named after his parents' Cuban hometown, Cien Fuegos, won the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1998.
Professor Bernard McKenna, hosts the reading with a grant from the Global Fellows Program to increase awareness of Caribbean literature.
"Why RB? He's the winner of this year's PEN/Beyond Margins award," McKenna states in an e-mail message.
Angela Capella, a sophomore English major, had the privilege of introducing Blanco.
"Richard Blanco was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States - meaning his mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of the family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid where he was born," Capella says. "Forty-five days later, the family emigrated once more, eventually settling in Miami where he was raised and educated."
Richard Blanco glances ahead, mumbles a few numbers and advanced math terms learned in classes far beyond high school and announces the answer with a chuckle - 1/3 of the cube of x prime et cetera.
The board also reads, "STAT200 Meet @ Gore 205 Today!"
"No, it's not a stat problem," Blanco says. "The stat kids are meeting Al Gore today or something."
He's not there to solve more equations, showing off his bachelor of science degrees in engineering from Florida International University. He's not there to keep telling jokes either, even though he tells many more before the presentation's over. When he's not working as a civil engineer and designing cityscapes, Richard Blanco writes poetry.
In fact, he's in Memorial Hall 108 to read some of his works - as soon as his toes thaw out, he says.
Blanco has published three books of poetry - "City of a Hundred Fires," "Directions to the Beach of the Dead" and "Nowhere But Here," which all deal with the quest for identity and a definite home as a Cuban-American.
"City of a Hundred Fires," named after his parents' Cuban hometown, Cien Fuegos, won the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1998.
Professor Bernard McKenna, hosts the reading with a grant from the Global Fellows Program to increase awareness of Caribbean literature.
"Why RB? He's the winner of this year's PEN/Beyond Margins award," McKenna states in an e-mail message.
Angela Capella, a sophomore English major, had the privilege of introducing Blanco.
"Richard Blanco was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States - meaning his mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of the family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid where he was born," Capella says. "Forty-five days later, the family emigrated once more, eventually settling in Miami where he was raised and educated."
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