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Learn from the Laureates: A Poetry Craft Chat

Join Poets Laureate Richard Blanco from Miami-Dade County and Laura McDermott Matheric from Coconut Creek for interactive discussions and exercises on the craft of writing poetry.

Participants will explore essential writing techniques, such as, the use sensory imagery and figurative language, modulation of the poetic line, and musicality. Come sharpen your poetic skills. Participants will be ato submit a poem to be judged by Mr. Blanco and Ms. McDermott. The top two winners will receive monetary awards of $250 for 1st place and $100 for 2nd place during the Festival on Sunday March 17th. 1st place winner will also be given the distinction of The Coral Springs Festival of the Arts Poet Laureate.

RICHARD BLANCO: Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. He has also authored the memoirs FOR ALL OF US, ONE TODAY: AN INAUGURAL POET’S JOURNEY and THE PRINCE OF LOS COCUYOS: A MIAMI CHILDHOOD.  Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees.  Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University.  In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

LAURA MCDERMOTT MATHERIC: A native Floridian, who studied creative writing, business, and education as an undergraduate at Florida State University and received her Masters of Fine Arts in poetry from Florida International University. She is co-founder of the Orange Island Arts Foundation, has worked with many nonprofit organizations including the Miami Book Fair International and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and currently serves as president of the Women’s Club of Coconut Creek. Laura began her teaching career at Broward College in 2007 and has been a tenured Professor of English since 2010. She serves as the Dual Enrollment Faculty Coordinator for Broward County.

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