One Today

As the year 2013 began, Blanco was somewhat known among poetry enthusiasts for his three award-winning collections published between 1998 and 2012, but he was certainly not a household name. This changed dramatically at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 21, 2013. An estimated national audience of 20 million people watched or listened on television, radio, and online as Blanco stood at the podium and read “One Today.” Millions more watched around the world.

In an interview with the Academy of American Poets published later that year, Blanco said that when he was commissioned to write the inaugural poem, the White House told him that the theme of the inauguration was “Faith in America’s Future” (“For All of Us, One Today: Richard Blanco in Conversation.” Poets.org, 2013). The inaugural committee gave him free rein to write whatever he wanted, suggesting only that the poem should take between and three and five minutes to read.

As he thought about his task, Blanco, who had immigrated with his parents to the United States, realized that he needed to look deeply at himself and consider “what it meant to be an American” (“