Im Auftrag

Richard Blanco, who was President Obama’s inaugural poet in 2013, has written a poem to honor the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba on Friday, Aug. 14.

The son of Cuban exiles, Blanco was commissioned to write “Matters of the Sea/Cosas del Mar,” by the U.S. State Department. He will travel to Havana to read the poem in person at the historic flag-raising ceremony.

“Matters of the Sea is one of the most emotionally complex and personal poems I’ve ever written, invested with all my love for the people of two countries that are part of my very being,” said Blanco, in a statement released by the University of Pittsburgh Press. “As with the presidential inauguration in 2013, I am once again humbled and honored to participate as a poet in another significant historic moment.”

University of Pittsburgh Press will publish “Matters of the Sea/Cosas del Mar” as a bilingual paperback chapbook… / Maggie Galehouse, blog.chron.com