A Reading by Richard Blanco, Campbell McGrath, and Raquel Salas Rivera

O, Miami and The Poetry Coalition present A Reading by Richard BlancoCampbell McGrath, and Raquel Salas Rivera, featuring an opening performance by Dr. Precious Symonette and the Florida Freedom Writers.

This event is free. Visit the Pérez Art Museum Miami online to register. Paid self-parking is available at the venue. Find out more: pamm.org/parking.

About the Poets

Richard Blanco's most recent poetry collection is How to Love a Country (Beacon Press, 2019). He is also the author of a memoir, The Prince of los Cocuyos (Ecco Press, 2014), which received a Lambda Literary Award. In 2013, he was selected to read at Barack Obama's second Presidential Inauguration. He is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Florida International University and the Education Ambassador of the Academy of American Poets.

Campbell McGrath is the author of eleven poetry collections, including Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems (Ecco Press, 2019) and Spring Comes to Chicago (Ecco Press, 1996), recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. McGrath’s honors include a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. He lives in Miami and teaches creative writing at Florida International University.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the author of five poetry collections, including lo terciario/ the tertiary (Noemi Press, 2019), a semifinalist for the National Book Award Longlist and winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry and x/ex/exis: poemas para la nación/ poems for the nation (Editorial Bilingüe/ Bilingual Press, 2020), the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize. They served as the Poet Laureate of Philadelphia from 2018 to 2019 and received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship in 2019. In 2020, they will be growing trinitarias in Santurce as La Impresora’s first poet in residence.

About The Poetry Coalition

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Each March, members present programming across the country on a theme of social importance. The 2019 theme is “What Is It, Then, Between Us?: Poetry & Democracy." The Poetry Coalition is coordinated by the Academy of American Poets and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

About O, Miami

O, Miami is an annual festival with the goal of every single person in Miami-Dade County encountering a poem during the month of April. Throughout the year, O, Miami increases access to literature and explores how and why literature impacts the lives of people in Miami. O, Miami is proudly supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and housed at The Betsy-South Beach. omiami.org