El Presidente de los Estados Unidos Barack H. Obama ha escogido a Richard Blanco poeta de padres cubanos pero que nació y creció en España para recitar uno de sus poemas en la Toma Presidencial que marca un hito histórico ya que es la primera vez que esto ocurre y para poner el tema más interesante el Poeta quién reside en Estados Unidos y publica en inglés mezclándolo con el español ganador de múltiples reconocimientos se ha declarado abiertamente Gay o sea homosexual algo digno de respetar porqué nos muestra que se han roto los paradigmas en los Estados Unidos y el mundo.
Según la página oficial del autor Richard Blanco fue hecho en Cuba ensamblado en España e importado a los Estados Unidos interesante mezcla ¿no creen ustedes?
City of a Hundred Fires es uno de sus poemarios más conocidos y galardonados fue su primer libro ganador de importantes premios como: Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from The University of Pittsburgh Press. Su segundo libro Directions to the Beach of the Dead ganó The Bayond Margins Award from the Pen American Center.
Sin duda alguna un poeta completo en todo sentido de la palabra y por algo fue escogido por Barack Obama para recitar un poema todavía inédito en la Toma de Posesión este 20 de enero del 2013 en los Estados Unidos un gran orgullo para los hispanos y por ser abierto en exponer su homosexualidad al mundo lo que demuestra que querer es poder.
Les dejo parte de su obra para que conozcamos un poco más de quién es Richard Blanco.
AMÉRICA
I.
Although Tía Miriam boasted she discovered
at least half-a-dozen uses for peanut butter--
topping for guava shells in syrup,
butter substitute for Cuban toast,
hair conditioner and relaxer--
Mamà never knew what to make
of the monthly five-pound jars
handed out by the immigration department
until my friend, Jeff, mentioned jelly.
II.
There was always pork though,
for every birthday and wedding,
whole ones on Christmas and New Year's Eves,
even on Thanksgiving Day--pork,
fried, broiled or crispy skin roasted--
as well as cauldrons of black beans,
fried plantain chips and yuca con mojito.
These items required a special visit
to Antonio's Mercado on the corner of 8th street
where men in guayaberas stood in senate
blaming Kennedy for everything--"Ese hijo de puta!"
the bile of Cuban coffee and cigar residue
filling the creases of their wrinkled lips;
clinging to one another's lies of lost wealth,
ashamed and empty as hollow trees.
III.
By seven I had grown suspicious--we were still here.
Overheard conversations about returning
had grown wistful and less frequent.
I spoke English; my parent's didn't.
We didn't live in a two story house
with a maid or a wood panel station wagon
nor vacation camping in Colorado.
None of the girls had hair of gold;
none of my brothers or cousins
were named Greg, Peter, or Marsha;
we were not the Brady Bunch.
None of the black and white characters
on Donna Reed or on Dick Van Dyke Show
were named Guadalupe, Lázaro, or Mercedes.
Patty Duke's family wasn't like us either--
they didn't have pork on Thanksgiving,
they ate turkey with cranberry sauce;
they didn't have yuca, they had yams
like the dittos of Pilgrims I colored in class.
IV.
A week before Thanksgiving
I explained to my abuelita
about the Indians and the Mayflower,
how Lincoln set the slaves free;
I explained to my parents about
the purple mountain's majesty,
"one if by land, two if by sea"
the cherry tree, the tea party,
the amber waves of grain,
the "masses yearning to be free"
liberty and justice for all, until
finally they agreed:
this Thanksgiving we would have turkey,
as well as pork.
V.
Abuelita prepared the poor fowl
as if committing an act of treason,
faking her enthusiasm for my sake.
Mamà set a frozen pumpkin pie in the oven
and prepared candied yams following instructions
I translated from the marshmallow bag.
The table was arrayed with gladiolus,
the plattered turkey loomed at the center
on plastic silver from Woolworths.
Everyone sat in green velvet chairs
we had upholstered with clear vinyl,
except Tío Carlos and Toti, seated
in the folding chairs from the Salvation Army.
I uttered a bilingual blessing
and the turkey was passed around
like a game of Russian Roulette.
"DRY", Tío Berto complained, and proceeded
to drown the lean slices with pork fat drippings
and cranberry jelly--"esa mierda roja," he called it.
Faces fell when Mamá presented her ochre pie--
pumpkin was a home remedy for ulcers, not a dessert.
Tía María made three rounds of Cuban coffee
then abuelo and Pepe cleared the living room furniture,
put on a Celia Cruz LP and the entire family
began to merengue over the linoleum of our apartment,
sweating rum and coffee until they remembered--
it was 1970 and 46 degrees--
in América.
After repositioning the furniture,
an appropriate darkness filled the room.
Tío Berto was the last to leave.
Este poema pertenece a su libro: City of a Hundred Fires
UNSPOKEN ELEGY FOR TÍA
CUCHA
I arrive with a box of pastelitos,
a dozen red carnations, and a handful
of memories at her door: the half-moons
of her French manicures, how she spoke
blowing out cigarette smoke, her words
leaving her mouth as ghosts, the music
of her nicknames: Cucha, Cuchita, Pucha.
I kiss her hello and she slaps me hard
across my arm: ¡Cabrón! Too handsome
to visit your Tía, eh? She laughs, pulls me
inside her efficiency, a place I thought
I had forgotten, comes back to life
with wafts of Jean Naté and Pine Sol,
the same calendar from Farmacia León
with scenes of Old Havana on the wall,
the same peppermints in a crystal dish.
And her, wearing a papery housecoat,
sneakers with panty hose, like she wore
those summer mornings she'd walk me
down to the beach along First Street,
past the washed-out pinks and blues
of the Art Deco hotels like old toys.
The retirees lined across the verandas
like seagulls peering into the horizon,
the mango popsicles from the bodeguita
and the pier she told me was once
a bridge to Cuba--have all vanished.
I ask how she's feeling, but we agree
not to talk about that today, though
we both know why I have come
to see her: in a few months, maybe
weeks, her lungs will fill up again,
her heart will stop for good. She too
will vanish, except what I remember
of her, this afternoon: sharing a pastelito,
over a café she sweetens with Equal
at her dinette table crowded with boxes
of low-salt saltines and fibery cereals.
Under the watch of Holy Jesus' heart
burning on the wall, we gossip about
the secret crush she had on my father
once, she counts exactly how many
years and months since she left Cuba
and her mother forever. We complain
about the wars, disease, fires blazing
on the midday news as she dunks
the flowers in a tumbler--a dozen red
suns burst in the sapphire sky framed
in the window, sitting by the table.
Este poema pertenece al libro: Looking for the Gulf Motel.
SOMEWHERE TO PARIS
The sole cause of a man's unhappiness
is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.
--Pascal, Pensées
The vias of Italy turn to memory with each turn
and clack of the train's wheels, with every stitch
of track we leave behind, the duomos return again
to my imagination, already imagining Paris--
a fantasy of lights and marble that may end
when the train stops at Gare de l'Est and I step
into the daylight. In this space between cities,
between the dreamed and the dreaming, there is
no map--no legend, no ancient street names
or arrows to follow, no red dot assuring me:
you are here--and no place else. If I don't know
where I am, then I am only these heartbeats,
my breaths, the mountains rising and falling
like a wave scrolling across the train's window.
I am alone with the moon on its path, staring
like a blank page, shear and white as the snow
on the peaks echoing back its light. I am this
solitude, never more beautiful, the arc of space
I travel through for a few hours, touching
nothing and keeping nothing, with nothing
to deny the night, the dark pines pointing
to the stars, this life, always moving and still.
Del Libro: Directions to the Beach of the Dead.
Más información en el Web Site del Autor: http://www.richard-blanco.com/
Noticia referente a su juventud, homosexualidad e hispanidad siendo el Primer Poeta que recitará en la Toma de Posesión de un Presidente de los Estados Unidos en este caso el de Barack Obama la noticia salió publicada en varios medios de comunicación como por ejemplo este publicado en la opinión.com
http://www.laopinion.com/Poeta_Richard_Blanco_recitar%C3%A1_en_inauguraci%C3%B3n_de_Obama___
Autor: Robert Allen Goodrich Valderrama
Panamá
