Quote of the Day

These words are shared in the spirit of Motherhood with gratitude to those who nurtured and held us, and with the knowing that we must ultimately learn to give that same tenderness to ourselves.

-- Richard Blanco

Bookin' It in 2016

I read the following 14 books in 2016. The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
2. The L Word Book by Jennifer Beals
3. Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus
4. How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living by Rob Bell
5. A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She Is Today by Kate Bornstein
6. The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper & Gloria Vanderbilt
7. Switching Teams: What Coming Out Later in Life Taught Me About Love, Conquering Fear and Accepting Change by Dawn Elizabeth Waters
8. Lynnee Breedlove's One Freak Show by Lynn Breedlove
9. Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective by Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins
10. Looking for The Gulf Motel by Richard Blanco
11. Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley
12. I'm Just a Person by Tig Notaro
13. Blue Horses by Mary Oliver
14. Forward by Abby Wambach

Quote of the Day

Poetry is about reaching for our common humanity.

-- Richard Blanco, "Son of Cuban exiles calls reciting poem at embassy opening his 'easiest yet hardest' job"

Quote of the Day

When we speak of gaydar, it's more than those obvious and cliche signifiers.  We're picking up something more sublime, yet infinitely more powerful: those invisible scars and war paint on our faces; those tribal values tinted in our eyes that say to one another: I have been where you have been, I know the darkness and the closed door, I have hurt as you have hurt, but I know the light, I am who you are, I believe what you believe.

-- Richard Blanco, The Out List, p. 11

Quote of the Day

Stepping out (or stumbling out) of that proverbial closet is a rite of passage unique to us; it makes us a tribe defined and united emotionally and spiritually by the values such a rite instills in us, namely: a respect for diversity of all kinds, a desire to love others how we want to be loved, the courage to love ourselves, a commitment to justice and empathy for every underdog, and a desire to create and beautify the world, rather than destroy it.

-- Richard Blanco, The Out List, p. 11

Quote of the Day

The act of becoming is one of the two fundamental human acts, the other being loving.  And we can't love without becoming, or become without loving.

-- Richard Blanco, The Prince of Los Cocuyos, p. xiii

Quote of the Day

The messages from my country speak clearly to me of the great potential and hope for poetry in America.  In a visionary moment, I know the greater good that must come from my honor as inaugural poet.  I make a conscious commitment to keep connecting America with poetry and reshape how we think about it, to try to dispel the myths and misconceptions about the art by introducing us to more contemporary work that speaks to our lives in real time.  And, moreover, to explore how I can empower educators to teach contemporary poetry and foster a new generation of poetry readers.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 102

Quote of the Day

I know -- believe -- there's a new dawn at hand for poetry and for poets as heroes, which parallels a new dawn in America and its changing human landscapes.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 108

Quote of the Day

Why isn't poetry a part of our cultural lives and conversations; part of our popular folklore as with film, music, and novels?

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 101

Quote of the Day

As a poet, I've been schooled to never conjure up cliched imagery, but there is no other way to say this: we stumble over words blurred by our tears, at times our voices surrender to silence as the only fitting homage to the pure, uncensored honesty we feel unworthy to read aloud.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 100-101

Quote of the Day

Connecting to people -- and having them connect emotionally to their own lives -- had become a kind of personal mission underlying my poems, my fundamental belief that this indeed was the ultimate beauty, power, and purpose of poetry.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 76

Bookin' It in 2014

Although my latest adventure, writing for Out & About Nashville, took away from some of my personal reading time this past year, I did read the following 22 books in '14.  The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel written by Madeleine L'Engle; adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson
2. Howl: A Graphic Novel written by Allen Ginsberg and animated by Eric Drooker
3. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon 
4. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey 
5. Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield 
6. Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou
7. Swan: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver 
8. Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women by Maya Angelou 
9. Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace by Frank Schaeffer 
10. The Liberation of Sophia by David Hayward 
11. Facing the Music: My Story by Jennifer Knapp 
12. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell 
13. Buddha's Little Instruction Book by Jack Kornfield
14. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
15. Awkward Moments Children's Bible, Vol. 1 by Horus Gilgamesh
16. Awkward Moments Children's Bible, Vol. 2 by Horus Gilgamesh
17. For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey by Richard Blanco
18. The Art of Coming Out by David Hayward 
19. The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood by Richard Blanco
20. The Thousand-Petaled Lotus: Growing Up Gay in the Southern Baptist Church by Michael Fields
21. Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You by Susan Forward and Donna Frazier
22. God Loves Hair by Vivek Shraya
    

Quote of the Day

One of the great challenges of writing an occasional poem is how to be intimate and conversational while also being grand and Whitmanesque.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 66

Quote of the Day

I came to understand the poem as a kind of prayer, an invocation, with an appeal to our higher selves at its emotional center.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 64

Quote of the Day

In my mind, the purpose of being the inaugural poet and of my poem was to transcend politics and envision a new relationship between all Americans.  I wanted America to embrace itself, so to speak, and recognize -- no, feel -- how we are all an essential part of one whole, if only for those few minutes when I would stand at the podium.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 64

Quote of the Day

I'm always amazed by the way unconscious feelings surface in poems, leading to a new or refined understanding of ourselves.  How they always seem to teach me something about myself and my world that I hadn't really acknowledged before.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 60

Quote of the Day

There is a popular misconception that poetry -- perhaps all art -- happens out of sheer genius or inspiration, and that all artists work alone.  That hasn't been my experience.  Most writers I know rely on someone they can trust with their work, which essentially implies someone we can also trust with our lives.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 57

Quote of the Day

I discovered that language had to be engineered in a way, just like the bridges and roads I was designing.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 21

Quote of the Day

Every story begins inside a story that's already begun by others.

-- Richard Blanco, For All of Us, One Today, p. 6