"Tender and introspective. . . . An exceptional mid-career snapshot of a trailblazing poet's remarkable journey."
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Booklist "Accessible and sincere, Blanco's poems may sometimes play tag with unmasked sentiment, but they are equally capable of sharp commentary and a keen engagement with contemporary American life."
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Library Journal "Some of his narrations are strong and precise, while others are rhythmic, especially his closing poems, which employ repetition and sounds that are almost song-like. Blanco's poems are full of life and warmth."
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AudioFile Magazine "What a gift, this new gathering of poems from the singular Richard Blanco. A cause for rejoicing!"
--Krista Tippett, author of
Being Wise and host of
On Being "Blanco's poems are journeys to a homeland within the heart, a welcome homecoming earned from a lifetime's wise voyaging."
--Sandra Cisneros
"Richard Blanco's
Homeland of My Body is a triumphant anthem to a rich life in all its ages and awakenings. 'What should I do? / Every thing.' These stunning new poems, astonishing in their generosity, cradle so many long-loved ones, that a full, new world is created--not broken into parts at all, but wholly realized, and utterly moving."
--Naomi Shihab Nye
"A masterful poet who is clear-eyed and full of heart, Blanco explores the country's haunted past while offering a bright hope for the future."
--Ada Limón
"What I love about Blanco's work is the lustiness of the poems; they have bodies, there's such sensuality to the language, such flexibility to the line; and they display such delight in form, an unapologetic love for the world. He has become a poet who sings for all of us with the inclusivity and passion of a Whitman and the particularity and absorption in the quotidian of a William Carlos Williams, the street smarts of a Langston Hughes, the oratorical grandness of an MLK."
--Julia Alvarez
"There is a uniting oneness to these passionate and remarkable poems, each finely wrought line a bridge from one heart to another, a love song of this burdened earth and all its flawed inhabitants. Richard Blanco is this century's Walt Whitman."
--Andre Dubus III
"Richard Blanco writes about the elusive poundingness of love."
--Eileen Myles
"In these times of hate, we need poets who speak of love."
--Martín Espada
