NUM Inc.

Salaams!

Humble!

Altered States!

Peace Park.

"COINS"

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Here lies an icon that taught everyone how to wait for their favorite song.

Twenty Years now!!!???

I was 10 years old when I began playing the guitar, imitating Odetta and then Joan Baez. When I was 13 I saw A Hard Day's Night, and I couldn't imagine anything better than to be ultra famous, with people chasing me down the street trying to get my autograph. I began writing songs then, and a year later I got my first gig as a performer.

I didn't think a whole lot about being a poet or poetry or becoming a great songwriter or even what a great song was back then. I thought a lot about cool clothes, looking cool, acting cool, and people admiring me for how cool I was. I guess that's normal for a teenager but it wasn't a good thing for me as a writer.

At some point between the ages of 14 and 16, a fan gave me a book by Rainer Maria Rilke. Somewhere in that book, maybe in the front, he said "I don't want to be a poet. I want to change your life."

In that moment, my life was changed. The trajectory of my life as a writer and an artist was changed, from wanting to be cool to wanting a life bigger my own. Wanting to create something bigger than myself. Wanting to change the world, for the better.

So the idea that a poem can change the reader is very dear to me. Because in the moment of reading his words, my entire life changed. I would not be the songwriter I became without that quote. Here it is again.

"Poems may not change the world directly, but a poem can change a person who will change the world." --Richard Blanco

https://richard-blanco.com