How to Love a Country: Poems

In his "Author's Note," at the end of his new collection poetry How to Love a Country, Richard Blanco tells us that the question underpinning this collection is "Are we going to advance toward a broader definition of 'we' or will we retreat to a narrower one?"

This mix of political and personal poems reveal that the political is personal. His poems are too long to quote in their entirety, but an excerpt from "November Eyes" is a perfect example:
Paper or plastic, Jan asks me at the checkout,
but it doesn't matter. What matters is this:
she's been to my bar-b-ques, I've donated
to her son's football league, we've shoveled
each other's driveways, we send each other
Christmas cards. She knows I'm Latino and
gay. Yet suddenly I don't know who she show more is
as I read the button on her polyester vest:
Trump: Make America Great Again, meaning
she doesn't really know me either.

Yet these are more than political rants. Blanco's use of imagery is breathtaking. In "Election Year, " our country becomes a garden, while the Río Grande speaks in "Complaint of the Río Grande." The short stanzas, repeating "but we couldn't" in the poem "Until We Could" reinforce the devastation of being unable to marry the person he loves, and the triumph when he could, "Love is the right to say: I do and I do and I do..."

His occasional poems, marking the shooting at the Pulse night club and the Boston Marathon bombing, and two poems submitted for President Obama's inauguration vividly reveal Blanco's pain, pride, and love for this country. Yet despite his unflinching look at problems in this country, at its heart, there is an optimism in this volume and the feeling that love will triumph.

Stunning collection. It's one I will return to. show less

In this collection of poems that are as powerful as they are timely, Blanco's work manages to marry hope for a better future with critiques of the present. Some of these poems come like a steel-toed kick to the gut, even as lyricism gives way to clever--and sometimes painful--truth, while others are quieter, but no less powerful for that apparent peace.

This is a timely collection that is worth reading, teaching, and sharing, and it's one I'll come back to. Absolutely recommended.

This morning I finished two books, both LibraryThing EarlyReviewer selections. John Pavlovitz's A Bigger Table and Richard Blanco's How to Love a Country both speak to the fractured nature of US society these days, and both seek to find ways to bring our society back together, to heal the wounds. Pavlovitz is a pastor in an urban, North Carolina church. As such, he speaks to church people and uses traditional Christian language. Blanco is a poet, the son of Cuban emigrés, gay, and a university professor and lecturer. He was the fifth person chosen to read at a presidential inauguration--Obama's second. The poems collected in How to Love a Country are both personal and powerful. Blanco writes to a country and people that have witnessed show more the Boston Marathon bombing, the Pulse Nightclub massacre, the anger of Ferguson, Missouri. And he speaks of his own life--coming to the realization that who he is and whom he loves will most likely alienate him from his family, his friends, his society. These poems are not easy to read, but they are crucial if we are to understand each other and build a society that offers full acceptance to the "other." Highly recommended. show less

Beautiful poems regarding our not-always-so-beautiful society. That there is even a debate as to who has rights and who doesn't...I am so disgusted and angry about the politics of today- and the shock of seeing how many people I know who are All For IT (I had NO IDEA!)....this book grounds me and speaks the truth.

A book of poems that combine the personal and the political. I was familiar with Blanco as the Presidential Inaugural Poet for Obama. Some of these poems hark back to an older tradition (Whitman, Sandburg, Hughes) in trying to make connections and speak to national identity. Several of these poems were commissioned, and many speak to recent national tragedies (Pulse Night Club, Sandy Hook). Here are some of my favorite lines:

.... We can die valiant as rainbows,
and hold light in our lucid bodies like blood.
We can decide to move boundlessly without
creed or desire. Until we are clouds meshed
within clouds sharing a kingdom with no king.
a city with no walls, a country with no name.
a nation without any borders or claim. Until
we abide as one show more together in a single sky. show less

This was an emotional roller coaster - well, mostly the trough before the crest. Blanco speaks for so many voices in this slim volume, and he does it beautifully. There was some prose poetry in here, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but there were others with lyrical refrains that flowed really well. read my full review here.

This collection of Richard Blanco’s poems reflects the sentiments that so many Americans feel toward our country. It is an amazing place to be, and we are privileged to be part of it. But there is the bittersweetness, the understanding that everything is not always lovely here, that people who share this country with us may not be welcoming of the diversity that exists in this place. It captures the conflict so many Americans feel - how do you love a country that’s so amazing but so divided?