About 100 people attended a book reading by Richard Blanco, the first openly gay, Latino and immigrant to speak as an inaugural poet, Tuesday night in Hunt Library.

The event brought the fifth-inaugural poet to Centennial Campus to speak about his experience at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration as well as his memoir, The Prince of Los Cocuyos. 

His memoir takes readers through his adolescence, as he grappled with the idea of “home” and the ways he was able to define his sexuality in the context of his family and Cuban culture. 

The title of the book comes from the word “cocuyo,” the Spanish word for a type of firefly or beetle native to the Caribbean and also the name of his great uncle’s grocery store. 

“El Cocuyo was where I learned to be Cuban,” Blanco said, adding that it was also where he began to understand his sexuality.

According to Blanco, the psychological and physical setting of the book resides in two imaginary worlds: the Cuban Miami that exists and hinges on the memories of his family, eager to remember the Cuba they left behind, and the idealistic America just beyond his reach. 

Blanco said the stories are just a vehicle to get at something larger about what it’s like to be human. He considers storytelling to be about making his readers and listeners think about their own families and past and how those experiences are shaped, instead of exclusively recounting his own story. 

Blanco began writing poetry in the middle of his career as a civil engineer after falling in love with the way that language remains malleable and shares meaning even in technical report writing. 

According to Blanco, poetry is a great way to get abstract feelings out that he can’t quite pinpoint, but a story is just a way to get at something larger and to share a specific story from his past that characterized his family. 

“Each chapter is constructed around a relationship and follows Ricky chasing his mythic America,” Blanco said of The Prince of Los Cocuyos. 

Rene Martin, the events coordinator at Quail Ridge Books & Music, introduced Blanco and thanked the crowd. 

“It’s your support in attending events like these that get publisher’s attention and allow us to have writers like these,” Martin said. 

Valerie Nelson, a junior in animal science, said she attended the event because it was being offered for credit for the Scholars program, even though she hadn’t heard of Blanco before the event.

“It sounded interesting … I like how he described his transition, how he didn’t really reject his Cuban culture but kind of combined the two,” Nelson said of Blanco’s experiences growing up in a Cuban household wanting nothing more than to be American.

Blanco chose to end the program with the poem that he wrote for President Obama’s second inauguration. Blanco originally wrote three poems, and the Inaugural committee chose “One Day” to be read. During his reading, Blanco said in many ways his memoir and his entire life led up to that moment standing before thousands of people on the steps of the Capitol Building.  

“It’s there that I embrace America in a way I never had … a real, tangible place that is mine and was mine all along,” Blanco said.

The event was hosted by Quail Ridge Books & Music and Friends of the Library.