Richard Blanco
Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. History, Richard Blanco was the youngest -- and the first Latinx, immigrant, and openly gay person -- to serve in such a role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden through the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in a working-class family in Miami, Blanco's personal negotiation of cultural identity and his exploration of universal themes of place and belonging characterize his many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body. This work reassesses traditional notions of home not as a strictly geographical or tangible place that exists outside us, but as something that also resides within us.
Blanco is also the author of the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. His honors include the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN America Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Literary Award for memoir. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Blanco has received numerous honorary degrees. He currently serves as Education Ambassador for the Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.