An election is a time for reflection. It is a moment to contemplate your values, the people you want representing those ideologies, and the direction you want our nation to go.
With the midterm tomorrow, it is important to take a second and look within before going in that booth.
Richard Blanco, the nation's fifth presidential inaugural poet and author, most recently, of the collaboration " Boundaries" — joined Boston Public Radio to help guide us in this moment of electoral introspection by reading three poems that explore the nature of democracy and some of the issues we will be voting on tomorrow.
The first poem Blanco read is one of his own called, "Election Year." In the poem, Blanco uses a garden as an allegory for democracy and the civic duty necessary for keeping it growing.
“I was just thinking how delicate a democracy is, right. Nature itself, there is so much you can do, but sometimes the weeds still come. It is always a battle for survival. The message here is we can’t give up on the garden, so to speak. ,” he said.
Follow along with the poems discussed in this segment, in order:
" Election Year" by Richard Blanco
" Sixteen "by Jimmy Santiago Baca
"
I Walk Into Every Room and Yell Where the Mexicans At" by José Olivarez
