Homeland of My Body: New and Selected Poems

by Richard Blanco Narrated by Richard Blanco

Overview

A rich, accomplished, intensely intimate collection with 2 full sections of new poems bookending Blanco's selections from his 5 previous volumes

“An engineer, poet, Cuban American . . . his poetry bridges cultures and languages-a mosaic of our past, our present, and our future-reflecting a nation that is hectic, colorful, and still becoming.”-President Joe Biden, conferring the National Humanities Medal on Richard Blanco, 2023

“What a gift, this new gathering of poems from the singular Richard Blanco. A cause for rejoicing!”-Krista Tippett, author of Being Wise and host of On Being

“Blanco's poems are journeys to a homeland within the heart, a welcome homecoming earned from a lifetime's wise voyaging.”-Sandra Cisneros

“A triumphant anthem to a rich life in all its ages and awakenings.”-Naomi Shihab Nye

In this collection of over 100 poems, Richard Blanco has carefully selected poems from his previous books that represent his evolution as a writer grappling with his identity, working to find and define “home,” and bookended them with new poems that address those issues from a fresh, more mature perspective, allowing him to approach surrendering the pain and urgency of his past explorations. Pausing at this pivotal moment in mid-career, Blanco reexamines his life-long quest to find his proverbial home and all that it encompasses: love, family, identity and ultimately art itself. In the closing section of the volume, he has come to understand and internalize the idea that “home” is not one place, not one thing, and lives both inside him and inside his art.

The poems range in form, voice, and setting, showcasing his command of craft, but in essence they are one continuous reflection on the existential question at the core of all of Blanco's poetry: how can we find our place in the world. All are characterized by his keen eye, deep sensibility, and polished craft, without pretense. This volume is a gift to Blanco's many readers but even more to those who have yet to discover that they can understand, and fall in love with poetry, that a poet can speak to them about his own and their own lives so profoundly, and that this poet, as Barack Obama discovered, can speak for all of us.

Richard Blanco has been justly celebrated for his poetic gifts and his command of the many forms poetry can take, from the finely structured to the prose poem formats. His previous volumes have been praised by Patricia Smith, Eileen Myles, Sandra Cisneros, Elizabeth Alexander, and many others. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and dozens of other publications.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 03/18/2024

This beautiful retrospective brings together selections from four of Blanco’s previous books—including his most recent, How to Love a Country—as well as vital new poems. Blanco contemplates identity, belonging, memory, and place as he writes about home, family, and love with a reverent and empathetic eye. In “Splintering,” he unflinchingly enacts the divide between body and soul, describing the moment when a child realizes what being is, as his mother tends to his wound: “I knew nothing of dying. Then she kissed/ the last bead of blood on my finger and said:/ I love you. Meaning what she’d love forever was more than my body, which suddenly split/ from me.” The new offerings powerfully bookend the collection, contextualizing Blanco’s expansive and impressive work. In “Become Me,” a poem written to his husband, the weight of love and death finds transcendence in a place that never dies: “Become my lungs,/ their last gap, nerves firing through/ every scene of our loving. Become the soil/ of my soul. There’s nothing more blessed/ than taking you with me into the ground.” Blanco’s expert command of craft and lyricism is evident in these pages as he offers readers a vision of the quintessential aspects that define humanity, even in the face of despair. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

Tender and introspective. . . . An exceptional mid-career snapshot of a trailblazing poet’s remarkable journey.”
—Booklist

“Accessible and sincere, Blanco’s poems may sometimes play tag with unmasked sentiment, but they are equally capable of sharp commentary and a keen engagement with contemporary American life.”
—Library Journal

“Some of his narrations are strong and precise, while others are rhythmic, especially his closing poems, which employ repetition and sounds that are almost song-like. Blanco’s poems are full of life and warmth.”
—AudioFile Magazine

“What a gift, this new gathering of poems from the singular Richard Blanco. A cause for rejoicing!”
—Krista Tippett, author of Being Wise and host of On Being

“Blanco’s poems are journeys to a homeland within the heart, a welcome homecoming earned from a lifetime’s wise voyaging.”
—Sandra Cisneros

“Richard Blanco’s Homeland of My Body is a triumphant anthem to a rich life in all its ages and awakenings. ‘What should I do? / Every thing.’ These stunning new poems, astonishing in their generosity, cradle so many long-loved ones, that a full, new world is created—not broken into parts at all, but wholly realized, and utterly moving.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye

“A masterful poet who is clear-eyed and full of heart, Blanco explores the country’s haunted past while offering a bright hope for the future.”
—Ada Limón

“What I love about Blanco’s work is the lustiness of the poems; they have bodies, there’s such sensuality to the language, such flexibility to the line; and they display such delight in form, an unapologetic love for the world. He has become a poet who sings for all of us with the inclusivity and passion of a Whitman and the particularity and absorption in the quotidian of a William Carlos Williams, the street smarts of a Langston Hughes, the oratorical grandness of an MLK.”
—Julia Alvarez

“There is a uniting oneness to these passionate and remarkable poems, each finely wrought line a bridge from one heart to another, a love song of this burdened earth and all its flawed inhabitants. Richard Blanco is this century’s Walt Whitman.”
—Andre Dubus III

“Richard Blanco writes about the elusive poundingness of love.”
—Eileen Myles

“In these times of hate, we need poets who speak of love.”
—Martín Espada

Library Journal

12/22/2023

While this compilation of work from Blanco's (How To Love a Country) previous four collections omits his widely appreciated 2013 presidential inauguration poem "One Today," fans of the Cuban American poet will be pleased to also find 34 new poems that continue his explorations into the intimate relationship of human consciousness with the vast world around it ("still trying to piece how I fit into the puzzle of / the constellations"). A poet of the heart, Blanco writes poems that privilege emotional intelligence over analysis or foregrounded aesthetics as he attempts to see through "the fog of difficult times" while "waiting for answers to blow in/ and clear this overcast life." His subjects range from childhood to sexuality to the visual arts, confronting both personal and national trauma along the way, but the solace and harmony provided by nature and its elements seem to inspire him most deeply (as in the poem "What Governs Us"). VERDICT Accessible and sincere, Blanco's poems may sometimes play tag with unmasked sentiment, but they are equally capable of sharp commentary ("History's most constant conceit: that to love/ a country justifies killing everyone who does/ not love it exactly as we wish") and a keen engagement with contemporary American life.—Fred Muratori

MARCH 2024 - AudioFile

Richard Blanco, a Cuban American poet, narrates an intimate collection of poems that reflect on humanity, home, family, identity, and healing. His voice is deep and intense. He enunciates words in English and Spanish with clarity and steadiness. Many endearing moments are conveyed in his tone as he depicts different characters in his life--sometimes his mother, grandmother, and father. At times, listeners will feel his sadness and frustration, as well--for example, when his grandmother would tell him to man up in the face of traumatizing name calling. Some of his narrations are strong and precise, while others are rhythmic, especially his closing poems, which employ repetition and sounds that are almost song-like. Blanco's poems are full of life and warmth. T.E.C. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178316955
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/24/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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