URI Today

Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Check the QuadCams

Inaugural Poet Blanco to return to Writing Conference

Poets, unlike rock stars or musicians, seldom get recognition from large audiences when they recite their poetry. But that changed for Richard Blanco last month. When he read his poem, One Today, at President Barack Obama�s inauguration, he gained instant fame.

Blanco had already built a following at URI from two earlier visits. Last year he led a series of intensive, three-day poetry workshops at the University�s Ocean State Summer Writing Conference. He will return to the University�s Kingston campus June 21 to deliver a keynote address and participate in other activities during URI�s 2013 writing conference in June.

President Obama selected Blanco because �his deeply personal poems are rooted in the idea of what it means to be an American...

more...

Today's Top Stories

[athletics] thumbnail placeholder Rams sport gray to support child with brain tumor: For the last week, Rhode Island athletes have been passing on wearing their Keaney Blues in favor of gray workout gear to show support for 4-year-old Brooke Healey.

[senior profiles] thumbnail placeholder Recent graduate earns two degrees, gains experience acting, modeling, painting: Many students have trouble finding just one field that they want to study while in college. That�s not the case for Julie Dawson, who has a variety of interests in several disciplines.

[alumni] thumbnail placeholder Alumnus Vladimir Duthiers� journalism career has come full circle: Vladimir Duthiers has heard the saying, �The key to immortality is living a life worth remembering.� It was these words, in part�oft-quoted, and variously attributed to Bruce Lee, Jesus, and St. Augustine�that led him out of a successful career in finance and back to his true passion.