How are our lives shaped by decisions made long before we were born?
That's a question poet Richard Blanco wrestles with in his latest installment of "Village Voice," Boston Public Radio's recurring conversation about how poetry can help us understand the news of the day. He looked at two poems, "Of Consequence, Inconsequently," and "Taking My Cousin's Photo At The Statue Of Liberty," that look at how the notions of destiny and chance shape the immigrant experience.
"When we're born, in a way, so much is already decided," said Blanco, who is the fifth person to serve as the inaugural poet in American history. "We walk in on the fifth act of the play. [There are] ways that so many people — by our grandparents, great-grandparents, sort of dictate our lives."
That was true for Blanco as well. Born to Cuban parents in Spain, he immigrated to the United States when he was still an infant. "I was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and then imported to the United States," he jokes.
In the poem "Of Consequence, Inconsequently," he looks at how these foundational aspects of his identity were shaped by chance. What if things had been different?
"I've always wondered, like the poem says, what if my parents had gone to Australia or something? I have no choice, in a sense, in this life that has been handed to me," he explained. Blanco ties this to the experience faced by participants in the DACA program, also known as "Dreamers," who — having been brought to the United States at a young age by their parents — are now faced with an uncertain future.
"This echoes to me something of what the 'Dreamers' go through," Blanco said. "Where do I come from? Where do I belong? What does the future hold?"
Click the audio player above to hear more from Richard Blanco, and follow along with the poems below.
Of Consequence, Inconsequently,
— by RICHARD BLANCO
A bearded shepherd in a gray wool vest,
a beret lowered to his brow, that’s how
my blood has always imagined the man
who was my great-grandfather, his eyes
hazel, I was told once. But I’ll never see
what he saw of his life in the cold rivers
of Asturias. I can only imagine the fog
caressing the hills of his village and him
watching from the window of the train
he took to Sevilla—for love, my mother
explained to me once, holding a ghost
of him in a photo on his wedding day
with an ascot tie and buttoned shoes
standing in a room filled with mahogany
and red roses. Were they red? What color
were the tiers of Spanish lace cascading
from my great-grandmother’s dress?
Nothing can speak for them now, tell me
what they saw in their eyes that morning
they left for love or war or both, crossing
the sea to Cuban palms and cane fields
quietly sweetening under the quiet sun.
But what if they’d never met, what color
would my eyes be? Who would I be now
had they gone to Johannesburg instead,
or Maracaibo, or not left Sevilla at all?
Into what seas would I have cast thoughts,
what other cities would I’ve drowned in?
The countries I would’ve lost, or betrayed,
the languages I would speak or not speak,
the names that would’ve been my names—
I’d like to believe I’ve willed every detail
of my life, but I’m a consequence, a drop
of rain, a seed fallen by chance, here
in the middle of a story I don’t know,
having to finish it and call it my own.
Taking My Cousin’s Photo at the Statue of Liberty
for Roxana
—by RICHARD BLANCO
May she never miss the sun or the rain in the valley
trickling from Royal palms, or the plush red earth,
or the flutter of sugarcane fields and poincianas, or
the endless hem of turquoise sea around the island,
may she never remember the sea or her life again
in Cuba selling glossy postcards of the revolution
and El Che to sweaty Germans, may she never forget
the broken toilet and peeling stucco of her room
in a government-partitioned mansion dissolving
like a sand castle back into the Bay of Cienfuegos,
may she never have to count the dollars we’d send
for her wedding dress, or save egg rations for a cake,
may she be as American as I wanted to be once, in love
with its rosy-cheeked men in breeches and white wigs,
with the calligraphy of our Liberty and Justice for All,
our We The People, may she memorize all fifty states,
our rivers and mountains, sing “God Bless America”
like she means it, like she’s never lived anywhere
else but here, may she admire our wars and our men
on the moon, may she believe our infomercials, buy
designer perfumes and underwear, drink Starbucks,
drive a Humvee, and have a dream, may she never
doubt America, may this be her country more than
it is mine when she lifts her Diet Coke like a torch
into the June sky and clutches her faux Chanel purse
to her chest, may she look into New York Harbor
for the rest of her life and hold still when I say, Smile.
