I had been thinking about the question, "What do I love about America?" I kept coming back to this idea of community and home, which already obsessed me in my work. But I couldn't quite figure out how to lead beyond my immediate experience. Then I was just standing at the kitchen sink, and I watched the sun rise, and I thought, "How many hundreds of thousands of people are watching the same sun rise right now?" I just knew the poem would go from that line.
Richard BlancoEntering into writing a poem is an emotional endeavor for me as well as a spiritual and creative one. Having to write those poems for the inauguration, I started asking deeper questions about my cultural identity, and my connection to America.
Richard Blanco