Reviews
"Every poem in Looking for The Gulf Motel packs an emotional wallop and an intellectual caress. A virtuoso of art and craft who juggles the subjective and the objective beautifully, Blanco is at the height of his creative prowess and one of the best of the best poets writing today." -Jim Elledge, "The poems in Looking for The Gulf Motel are bittersweet songs that ache with the 'sweet and slow honey of a bolero.' They croon about journeys from Cuba and Spain to Florida and Mai≠mourn languages, lovers, and names that were or could have been; and praise the forgotten pop culture icons that expanded one young person's view of his nationality and manhood. If all loss is like exile, Blanco tells us, then searching for love (in the self, in others) is healing, is finding home, because 'love is thicker than any country.'" -Rigoberto González, The main thing about Blanco's poems is how lyrical his voice is and how universal his themes, how easily we can relate to his concerns." —Chamber Four, "The poems in Looking for The Gulf Motel are bittersweet songs that ache with the 'sweet and slow honey of a bolero.' They croon about journeys from Cuba and Spain to Florida and Maine; mourn languages, lovers, and names that were or could have been; and praise the forgotten pop culture icons that expanded one young person's view of his nationality and manhood. If all loss is like exile, Blanco tells us, then searching for love (in the self, in others) is healing, is finding home, because 'love is thicker than any country.'" --Rigoberto Gonzlez, "The poems in Looking for The Gulf Motel are bittersweet songs that ache with the 'sweet and slow honey of a bolero.' They croon about journeys from Cuba and Spain to Florida and Maine; mourn languages, lovers, and names that were or could have been; and praise the forgotten pop culture icons that expanded one young person's view of his nationality and manhood. If all loss is like exile, Blanco tells us, then searching for love (in the self, in others) is healing, is finding home, because 'love is thicker than any country.'" --Rigoberto González, "W. H. Auden, asked to define poetry from the other written arts, wrote that poetry was 'memorable speech.' Richard Blanco's speech invites the reader in with its search for home. His lyrics open doors onto his Cuban immigrant family, his father's early death, and his own migration from a life in Florida to a life in Maine. His speech houses a generous love of others and a persistent reach for what is absent. There is nothing here you will not remember." --Spencer Reece, "The main thing about Blanco's poems is how lyrical his voice is and how universal his themes, how easily we can relate to his concerns." --Chamber Four, "The poems in Looking for The Gulf Motel are bittersweet songs that ache with the 'sweet and slow honey of a bolero.' They croon about journeys from Cuba and Spain to Florida and Mai≠mourn languages, lovers, and names that were or could have been; and praise the forgotten pop culture icons that expanded one young person's view of his nationality and manhood. If all loss is like exile, Blanco tells us, then searching for love (in the self, in others) is healing, is finding home, because 'love is thicker than any country.'" -Rigoberto GonzÃ�lez, "Every poem in Looking for The Gulf Motel packs an emotional wallop and an intellectual caress. A virtuoso of art and craft who juggles the subjective and the objective beautifully, Blanco is at the height of his creative prowess and one of the best of the best poets writing today." --Jim Elledge, "W. H. Auden, asked to define poetry from the other written arts, wrote that poetry was 'memorable speech.' Richard Blanco's speech invites the reader in with its search for home. His lyrics open doors onto his Cuban immigrant family, his father's early death, and his own migration from a life in Florida to a life in Maine. His speech houses a generous love of others and a persistent reach for what is absent. There is nothing here you will not remember." -Spencer Reece, "These are poems of poetic beauty and heart, confession and acceptance, courage and love. Wonderful." --Synecdoche