In collaboration with faculty, he will infuse poetry into the School’s multi-genre arts curriculum, which aims to provide further access to under-represented art forms, as well as to deepen the students’ connections to each other and to the world around them.
Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco has become the first visiting artist at the SPAC School of the Arts (SOTA) -- a multidisciplinary school dedicated to dance, music, and theatre, with additional offerings in literary arts, visual arts, and media arts – in addition to serving as a mentor for the 2022 Adirondack Trust Company Festival of Young Artists.
Driven by a desire to examine the essence of place and belonging, Blanco explores through his work his cultural identity as a Cuban-American and how we are shaped by experiences, memories, and our complex stories. As inaugural poet for President Obama and the first-ever Education Ambassador for the Academy of American poets, Richard Blanco brings his passion for inspiring students through the close reading, writing and performing of poems.
