Something amazing written by the poet you will hear tomorrow (Richard Blanco)

[dsc]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-blanco/making-a-man-out-of-me_b_2507024.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices

I'm six or seven years old, riding back home with my grandfather and my Cuban grandmother from my tía Onelia's house.

Her son Juan Alberto is effeminate, "un afeminado," my grandmother says with disgust. "¿Por qué? He's so handsome. Where did she go wrong with dat niño?" she continues, and then turns to me in the back seat: "Better to having a granddaughter who's a whore than a grandson who is un pato faggot like you. Understand?" she says with scorn in her voice.

I nod my head yes, but I don't understand: I don't know what a faggot means, really; don't even know about sex yet. All I know is she's talking about me, me; and whatever I am, is bad, very bad. Twenty-something years later, I sit in my therapist's office, telling him that same story. With his guidance through the months that follow, I discover the extent of my grandmother's verbal and psychological abuse, which I had swept under my subconscious rug.

Through the years and to this day I continue unraveling how that abuse affected my personality, my relationships, and my writing. I write, not in the light of Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, or Elizabeth Bishop, but in the shadow of my grandmother--a homophobic woman with only a sixth-grade education--who has exerted (and still exerts) the most influence on my development as a writer.

I can't recommend highly enough that you read the whole thing even if you hate the Huffington Post.

[MuseRider]

1. Very touching

and very, deeply personal.

[genxlib]

2. One of the most beautiful and heartbreaking things I have ever read

Richard is a personal friend and co-worker for many many years. I confess that i never knew about how much abuse he suffered at the hands of his family.

I am really proud of him. Partly for his success but mostly for the man he has become.

[dsc]

3. You should be

Youngest, first gay, and first non native speaker to be poet at the Inagural.