Richard Blanco's Inaugural Speech

Richard Blanco is an American poet, public speaker, and author. Blanco was born February 15, 1968 in Madrid. As an infant, Blanco immigrated from Cuba to Miami, there he was raised by his family and received an American education. Since 1999 Blanco has traveled and lived in many places such as Guatemala and Brazil. He spent much of his life teaching at multiple universities such as Georgetown, American, and Central Connecticut. Blanco is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop, this prestigious workshop was founded by Sandra Cisneros. Throughout Blancos life he has many honorable achievements to his name. However none larger and more valuable than when he was named the inaugural poet for Barack Obama's second inauguration on January 8, 2013. Blanco was the fifth person to play this role, and was the first immigrant, first Latino, and first openly gay poet to be the inaugural speaker. This not only brought fame and awareness to Blanco, but it also united many communities and brought people together. At Barack Obama's inauguration, Richard Blanco chose to read one of his poems. The poem he chose was called “One Today”. This was an appropriate poem for Richard to choose as it was suiting for the occasion. “One Today” has a large emphasis on what it means
This was an extremely powerful event not only for the people for Boston, but for America. Throughout the poem “Boston Strong” Blanco has an extreme emphasis on the unity the people of America must have for one another, specifically for the people of Boston as they were directly affected and hurt by these effects. The mood and tempo of this poem was slow and strong as Blancos purpose was to provide the people of Boston with hope and community, and also let them know that they are not in the fight alone. They were made aware that America as a whole was in support of