© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco

During the President’s inauguration ceremony on Monday, Richard Blanco delivered a poem written especially for this occasion.  At age 44, he is not only the youngest, but the first Latino and openly gay poet to have this honor.  In September 2012, Blanco visited UMKC as one of the Bernardin-Haskell speakers for National Hispanic Heritage Month with the Latino Studies Program. He was recorded at Language Resource Center by New Letters on the Air. (For more on this visit, check the Letra Latinas blog).

Poet Richard Blanco wrote and read the poem "One Today" in honor of President Obama’s inauguration.

http://youtu.be/AkSRy8SGTEE

Angela Elam, producer/host of UMKC's literary radio show New Letters on the Air has worked in public radio since 1988, but she got her start as a reader for Radio Deutsche Welle in Cologne, Germany in 1981.
No matter what happens in Washington D.C., Kansas City needs KCUR. And KCUR needs you.

Our ability to report local news — accurate, independent and paywall-free — depends on you. Donate now to support fact-based news.