Courtesy of the Brainerd Dispatch • September 13, 2013
By Mike O’Rourke, Associate Editor
Growing up as a “barely middle class” immigrant in Miami, poet Richard Blanco said there were pressures that led him toward the practical choice of an engineering degree. He’s worked, on and off, for 20 years in that field, but most Americans know him as one of only five poets to be asked to read his work at a presidential inauguration.
“One Today,” the poem he wrote for President Barack Obama’s 2013 presidential inauguration, catapulted Blanco to the forefront of American poets and brought his earlier publications recognition that other poets might work a lifetime to achieve.