Miami, April 5, 2018 — Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) will present Poetry Along the Bay, an evening on a cruise ship under the stars with celebrated Cuban American poet Richard Blanco. A multifaceted writer who grew up in Miami and the author of a number of books, Blanco memorably read one of his poems at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration in 2013. Poetry Along the Bay will take place on board the boat the Miami Lady on Friday, April 27. Boarding will begin promptly at 7 p.m.
Poetry Along the Bay is part of MOAD MDC’s Living Together, an exciting cross-disciplinary series of programs that will galvanize Miami audiences with thoughtful and challenging performances and exhibitions that draw from art, music, theater, politics, and poetry. Spread across the city at a wide array of venues, the series features performances, exhibitions, film and video screenings, readings, talks, and workshops that will reflect the cultural, social, and political realities of how we live now. Living Together seeks to find new ways to think about civic space and citizenship, to instigate actions and conversations that may help us to reimagine our cities and our lives.
Long inspired by the cultural diversity and beauty of Miami, the city where he spent most of his life, Blanco will read from his works during an evening cruise onboard the Miami Lady. As the boat sails on Biscayne Bay, past illuminated landmarks old and new, audiences will hear a poetry that grapples with the state of the world and our place in it, and demonstrates why Miami remains an incubator for artistic talent in many fields.
An influential poet and story teller, Blanco invites audiences to reconnect to the heart of human experience. Born in Madrid to Cuban exiled parents and raised in Miami, he has created a body of work characterized by the negotiation of cultural identity and place. He is the author of the award-winning memoirs The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood and For All of Us; One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey; the poetry chapbooks Matters of the Sea, One Today, and Boston Strong; the poetry collections Looking for the Gulf Motel, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and City of a Hundred Fires; a children’s book of his inaugural poem, One Today, illustrated by Dav Pilkey; and Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler. With Ruth Behar, he is co-creator of the blog Bridges to/from Cuba: Lifting the Emotional Embargo, which provides a cultural and artistic platform for sharing the real lives and complex emotional histories of thousands of Cubans across the globe. He has been a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and received honorary doctorates from Macalester College, Colby College, and the University of Rhode Island. He has continued to write occasional poems for organizations and events such as the re-opening of the U.S. embassy in Havana.
MOAD celebrates its grand opening on April 5, 2018, by presenting Living Together at various sites across the greater Miami area from now to September 2018. Living Together will include works by 17 of the most acclaimed national and international artists, art collectives, musicians, and writers. Events in the series will be produced by MOAD MDC in collaboration with a range of other Miami institutions, and most events will be free and open to the public. The curators of Living Together are Rina Carvajal, Executive Director and Chief Curator of MOAD, and Joseph R. Wolin, an independent curator based in New York.
Living Together is made possible by the generous support of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council.
WHAT: Richard Blanco: Poetry Along the Bay
WHEN: Friday, April 27, boarding at 7:00 p.m.; boat leaves promptly at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Miami Lady, Island Queen Cruises, Bayside Park, 401 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami, FL 33132.
Tickets are $15 general admission; $ 10 MDC faculty and staff; $5 students with ID; free to MDC students. Purchase at http://www.mdcmoad.org/.
For assistance with accessibility challenges, call (305) 237-7710
For updates and a full schedule of events, please visit http://www.mdcmoad.org/
Press Contacts: JWI PR—Jessica Wade Pfeffer: 305-804-8424, jessica@jwipr.com; or Juliana Gutierrez: 305-991-4259, juliana@jwipr.com.