Photograph taken by Havana poet Marcelo Morales on August 14, 2015. It depicts poet Richard Blanco with an enthusiastic crowd on the occasion of the reopening of the United States Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Courtesy of Marcelo Morales.
At the function dedicated to reopening the US Embassy in Havana, Richard Blanco read from a poem that declared: “No one is other, to the other, to the sea, whether / on hemmed island or vast continent, remember.”[2] His poem, “Matters of the Sea,” projects optimism about unity and renewal — or is it didacticism? — diplomacy? All of the above?
Look Innocence is important It has meaning Look It can give us Hope against the very winds that we batter against it.
At the function dedicated to reopening the US Embassy in Havana, Richard Blanco read from a poem that declared: “No one is other, to the other, to the sea, whether / on hemmed island or vast continent, remember.”[2]
Catch and Release – an English phrase – is the title of a poetry collection composed in Spanish by Reina María Rodríguez.[1] Throughout this book Rodríguez makes repeated reference to objects and occurrences that fall short of desires. Her pattern of representing shortfall became a conscious element as she completed the composition of the book.
What matters to me [. ..] is incorporating everything. In other words, not differentiating between literature and the life that I’m living. I think that conserving it there as the work… it’s like capital accumulated toward our possibility of really achieving a powerful state. Not greater, but broader, a passion or a form. Because in each of my books, what has always mattered is the human form of existence itself. Existing and seeing what is happening.
Ernesto Livon-Grosman's poetry video of Roberto Cignoni, Jorge Santiago Perednik, Reina Maria Rodriguez (pictured), and Raul Zurita (as well as my collaboration with Perednick) new at PennSound
Ernesto Livon-Grosman's poetry video of Roberto Cignoni, Jorge Santiago Perednik, Reina Maria Rodriguez (pictured), and Raul Zurita (as well as my collaboration with Perednick)
Reina María Rodríguez on Close Listening and at Kelly Writers House
Sept. 8, 2015, with translator Kristin Dykstra
The Cuban poet talks to Charles Bernstein on Close Listening along with audio and video of her Kelly Writers House reading.
Close Listening program (1:03:34): MP3