The poems in Directions to the Beach of the Dead are driven by a powerful question — What is home? What is place? — whether sitting in a piazza in Rome or walking through the melancholy of Venice; whether starring into a volcano in Guatemala or into the eyes of lamb heads at a market in Barcelona; whether driving through Brazil or down a causeway in Miami; whether at a piano bar on a cruise ship or singing folksongs with relatives in Cuba; whether visiting Old Havana or an old friend in Vermont; whether listening to a neighbor in Hartford playing Bach, or sitting quietly in a room watching the dust fall. Through the journeys and landscapes of this rich and vigorous collection, Blanco examines the ways in which we attempt to answer questions of home and place and that particular sense of connection we seek through history, memory, family, love, friendship, nature, and art.
In his acclaimed first book, City of a Hundred Fires, the question of home is framed by Blanco's experiences as a Cuban-American. However, the poems in Directions to the Beach of the Dead encompass experiences beyond the realm of cultural identity. As such, this collection reflects an evolution in Latino letters and for American poets, who strive for a more cosmopolitan perspective and scope, while still maintaining a solid claim on their ethnicity. For Blanco, a child of Cuban exiles who could claim citizenship in three countries only forty-five days after his birth, the question of home is expected. But it is also an ancient, universal one. Figuratively or literally, we are motivated by a desire to fulfill our ideal of home. Directions to the Beach of the Dead is testament to that desire. While recognizing the improbability of satisfying it, Richard Blanco celebrates the mortal spirit urgently seeking the ideal and the essential beauty of the journey.
Three poems from Directions to the Beach of the Dead —
My Campo Santo, Time as Art in The Eternal City, What's Love Got to Do?
Reading this collection gave me the thrilling feeling I was trespassing on the intimate correspondence between a lover and a beloved — and filled me with envy. Ah, to be the receiver of such exquisite letters! Ah, to be the object of such exquisite love!— Sandra Cisneros, author of Caramelo and The House on Mango Street, and the poetry collection Loose Woman
For those of us who became devotees of Richard Blanco's first, prize winning book, City of a Hundred Fires, for its luscious, eloquent voice, this second volume is reason for celebration. Mr. Blanco's Directions to the Beach of the Dead is absolutely breathtaking and gorgeous in its quest for place, family, self-discovery. This book is as fresh as it is invigorating. Mr. Blanco's voice is unmistakably brilliant and original. For all poetry lovers, this will be a difficult book to top.— Virgil Suarez, author of 90 Miles: Selected and New and Palm Crows (University of Arizona Press)
In his new volume of poems, Richard Blanco extends his reach and strengthens his grasp. Part travel diary and part journal intime, Directions to the Beach of the Dead takes Blanco into uncharted territory, emotionally as well as geographically, showcasing his great gift for the precise notation of sights, thoughts, and feelings. This book confirms Blanco’s place as a strong and distinctive voice in American poetry.— Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Columbia University
This work is about "the paradox of crossing, being nowhere yet here," where travelers, family members, and lovers seem perpetually in a state of "almost touching," of "learn[ing] to adore [their] losses." Heartfelt and elegant, these exquisitely crafted poems place Blanco in that pantheon of poetas from the Americas who have flourished in the Old World and the New. Directions to the Beach of the Dead — spanning three continents — marks Richard Blanco as arguably the most cosmopolitan poet of his generation.— Francisco Aragón, author of Puerta del Sol
In Directions to the Beach of the Dead, Richard Blanco enacts the exile's great conflict in his astonishing, unerring poems of distance and desire, refuge and release. At once pensive and restless, full of both abandonment and abandon, this book is ultimately a journey to the haunted, utterly familiar places in our own hearts. Lost Cuba, newfound love, immemorial time — this soulful poet gives us all that is at once impossible to have ever owned, and yet ever within the reach of our having known.— Rafael Campo, author of Landscape with Human Figure
The universe of Richard Blanco is a place of lush, exhilarating landscapes and kindred souls. Its sweep is both magnificent and intimate in detail. And it shines most gloriously in his latest offering, Directions to the Beach of the Dead. His words are honey from Ochún herself.— Liz Balmaseda, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer
Richard Blanco has written a strong and beautiful book that takes his fine poetry forward to a new and exciting level. While these poems possess a keen sense of past and place, they move beyond nostalgia to the rich difficulties of the nowhere but here that is his clear milieu.— Elizabeth Alexander, Yale University
Richard Blanco is a troubadour of Exile...with aching stories of its displacement, loss and nostalgia, — that uniquely Cuban reverie — for what might have been.— Ann Louise Bardach, author of Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana