How to Love a Country

Poems

By: Richard Blanco

Narrated by: Richard Blanco

A timely and moving collection from the renowned inaugural poet on issues facing our country and people - immigration, gun violence, racism, LGBTQ issues, and more.

Through an oracular yet intimate and accessible voice, Richard Blanco addresses the complexities and contradictions of our nationhood and the unresolved sociopolitical matters that affect us all. Blanco digs deep into the very marrow of our nation through poems that interrogate our past and present, grieve our injustices, and note our flaws, but also remember to celebrate our ideals and cling to our hopes. Charged with the utopian idea that no single narrative is more important than another, this audiobook asserts that America could and ought someday to be a country where all narratives converge into one, a country we can all be proud to love and where we can all truly thrive.

The poems form a mosaic of seemingly varied topics: the Pulse nightclub massacre; an unexpected encounter on a visit to Cuba; the forced exile of 8,500 Navajos in 1868; a lynching in Alabama; the arrival of a young Chinese woman at Angel Island in 1938; the incarceration of a gifted writer; and the poet’s abiding love for his partner, who he is finally allowed to wed as a gay man. But despite each poem’s unique concern or occasion, all are fundamentally struggling with the overwhelming question of how to love this country.

©2019 Richard Blanco (P)2019 Beacon Press

Critic reviews

“Blanco’s contributions to the fields of poetry and the arts have already paved a path forward for future generations of writers.... Our nation was built on the freedom of expression, and poetry has long played an important role in telling the story of our union and illuminating the experiences that unite all people.” (President Barack Obama)

“At a time when we are once again debating our identity as Americans, this splendid collection of poems from a great storytelling poet is an absolute treasure that speaks to the things that hold us together despite the things that split us apart.” (Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Leadership in Turbulent Times)

“From a country courting implosion, a country at odds with its own brutal and breathless backstory, a country with a name that sparks both expletive and prayer, rises Richard Blanco’s muscular, resolute voice - sounding stanzas of the confounded heart and clenched fist, of indignation and insurrection. This is an urgent gathering of sweet, fractured, insistent American noise - the stories that feed us and the stories we’d rather forget - re-teaching us all the right ways there are to love a country that so often forgets how to love us back.” (Patricia Smith, author of Incendiary Art)

“This clear-seeing and forthright volume marks Blanco as a major, deeply relevant poet.” (Booklist, starred review)

How to Love a Country

I could not figure out why the voice seemed off. Sounded like the teacher from Ferris Bueller "anyone? anyone?" I may have missed him saying that this was a collection of poems. In the end when narrator said that this was collection of poems did my "makes sense" light bulb go off. I have several audible books that I relisten to, not sure if I can revist this book?

Superb

A poet for today. A must read but better heard on audiobooks. Get it now.