For the second time in five years, Richard Blanco, the fifth and youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, will return as the featured speaker at the Montgomery County Community College 2020 Presidential Symposium on Diversity.

The event will take place online via Zoom on Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Blanco will discuss his book of poems, "How to Love a Country." The presentation will include a question and answer session. This event is free and open to the community; however, pre-registration is required by Sunday, Oct. 18. 

As part of the symposium, students and employees were invited to participate in a poetry contest, focused on their experiences and sense of belonging in this country. Poem submissions will be shared in a poetry panel workshop at the end of the event day from 4 to 5 p.m. and will be published thereafter. A panel of six faculty members and Blanco will be in attendance for the invitation-only workshop where the winners will be announced.

Rose Makofske, Director of Equity Diversity and Inclusion, said she was excited for Blanco’s return.

“His biography and the information on his new book 'How to Love a Country' represent a call to unity despite differences,” she said, “a case for belonging and a case for love of country despite our many challenges.”

Blanco previously visited the College during the 2015 Presidential Symposium on Diversity. As a poet, public speaker, teacher and memoirist, he touches the hearts of his audiences as he shares his poetry across the country and the world. Through his transformative words, Blanco helps us to see beyond our differences and reconnect with each other through our shared experiences. His most recent book of poems, “How to Love a Country,” examines both our nation’s past and present injustices, celebrates our ideals and asserts that America could be place where all narratives will come together as one.

Born in Madrid to Cuban exiled parents, Blanco and his family immigrated to New York City while he was an infant and then moved to Miami, Florida, where he grew up in a close-knit Cuban community. In 1991, he earned his civil engineering degree from Florida International University.

In his mid-twenties, he returned to Florida International University, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing in 1997. He published his first book of poetry, “City of Hundred Fires,” in 1998. The book garnered the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and he decided to leave the engineering field to teach creative writing at the Central Connecticut State University, where he met his partner, Dr. Mark Neveu.

Thereafter, Blanco traveled extensively, moved to Guatemala and then to Washington, DC, in 2002. He published his second book, comprised of poems relating to his journeys, in 2005. The book, “Directions to the Beach of the Dead,” received the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center.

His book, “Looking for the Gulf Motel,” was published in 2012, after he moved to Bethel, Maine. While he was living here, he received the phone call from President Barack Obama to serve as the fifth inaugural poet, following in the footsteps of Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Blanco wrote the poem, “One Today,” which he read during the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 21, 2013. In his book, “For All of Us, One Today,” published in 2013, he describes his experience as inaugural poet.

Since the inauguration, Blanco was named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, and received an honorary doctorate from Macalester College. He continues to connect communities to poetry through the art of occasional poetry, and to help heal the emotional pain following the Boston Marathon bombings, Blanco wrote “Boston Strong, which he read at benefit concert.

In his book, “The Prince of los Cocuyos,” published in September 2014, Blanco shares his story as a child of Cuban immigrants and his endeavors to understand and embrace his identity. His most recent book, “How to Love a Country,” was published in 2019.

MCCC’s annual Presidential Symposium was created as a capstone event that advances and facilitates ongoing public dialogue on diversity and inclusiveness among students, faculty, staff and community.