For the most part, I don’t know where a poem will lead, but I’ll have a sense of the theme or texture to start with. It can be an image, a quote, or … - Richard Blanco

I want to turn metrophobes (people with a fear of poetry) into metromaniacs. I think the fear goes back to the way poetry is taught. I think we should approach poetry more like music or art. Instead, it’s shrouded in mystery. Like anything new that you try, you start and fail and then improve. You have to keep practicing. Creating can be a wonderful space, but it can be terrifying, and you just have to accept it and dive in. Eventually, you get into the flow, and it gets a little easier.

One of the real gifts of the inauguration was realizing that my story, my mother’s story, the immigrant story, the gay story, that really they’re an authentic piece of the American story…Until the honor of being asked to speak for my country, I wasn’t quite American yet. I wasn’t Peter Brady. America felt like this other place. ... but I realized: This is my country. This is where I belong. This is as valid to me as a gay man, as a Cuban man, as it is for anybody else in America. I think it’s going to change my art and make me write about the other ways I can claim America.

I really didn't end up coming out until much later in life ... and what really fascinated me as a writer and as an investigator is, how does that happen? How is it that moment by moment the next notch of courage, the next notch of self-understanding — even though you know you're gay at 12, 13, 14 [years old], those words can't even enter your mind. You can't even have the vocabulary; you don't say "Gee, I think I'm gay." No, it doesn't happen that way…