A good weekend to you. Richard Blanco, the great poet, was among a group who received National Humanities medals this week, and we were able to ask him a few questions:
Q: You have often said you were made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S. Does that give you a unique view of our national life?
A: My mother, seven months pregnant with me, left Cuba for Madrid, where I was born. We immigrated once more when I was only 45 days old. Through my eye as the “other,” I am critical of our country’s social and political issues, our flaws, our injustices. But through my eye of the immigrant, I also celebrate our ideals of freedom and unity with an enduring hope that one day we will truly fulfill them for all.
Q: You have also been a serious, working engineer. Do you keep the engineer and the poet separate, or let them help each other?
A: I see a poem as sort of an emotional design problem that I solve through the math of language. And so I feel I’m a better poet because I am an engineer. But I also feel that I am a better engineer because I am a poet. Poetry helped me think outside the box to solve design problems. I sense similar mental faculties at work whether I’m designing a bridge or a poem.
Q: What can poetry put into our lives?
A: I think poetry is very close to music. A poem, like a song, says, “Me too, I know how you feel. Sing along with me.”
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