City of a Hundred Fires (Pitt Poetry Series)

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Summary: One of my favorite books of poetry...
Review: I read one poem of Richard Blanco's on the Internet and was intrigued. I bought this book based on one poem and have never regretted it. This book is incredibly satisfying to me as reader and writer of poetry. I have read it more than once and continually return to it for its love of language, culture and detail. Each poem is beautifully written and together as a collection, it only gets better. Would highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Voice
Review: My tastes in poetry are usually kind of old fashioned. I was at the library to get a volume of Blake's poetry. The book I wanted wasn't on the shelf but Richard Blanco's was. I'm not sure what made me sit down and read it, what made me check it out from library, but I did. Blanco writes about a place and people I know little about, and yet his attention to place and relationships of all kind made me feel grounded in a real world, not an exoticized one. And I must admit, reading these poems made me think better of contemporary poetry.

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Summary: Cienfuegos
Review: Richard Blanco's "City of a Hundred Fires" is rich and ripe with images and emotion. Voicing the experience of many hyphenated Cuban-Americans, Blanco captures the beauty of the every day, the pain of a displaced community of exiles and their strength and determination in tackling a new country. He celebrates their resilience and mourns their losses -- emotional, psychological and physical. Referring to Cienfuegos, Cuba, "City of 100 Fires" is a beautiful and moving collection of poems that I have shared with many and will always keep close to my heart.