Announcing…Fourteenth Annual

Lackawanna Reads 2024!

One Book, One College

Lackawanna Reads Mission Statement

The purpose of this program is to provide everyone in the college community with an enjoyable and positive reading experience, to promote life-long learning, to reinforce the message that reading is an integral part of the college experience, and to encourage our student body along, with faculty and staff, to read the same book and participate in open discussions across the curriculum.

 

 

    Lackawanna Reads Objectives

• To introduce and create a united social and academic experience for incoming freshmen, returning students, faculty, staff, and administration… the entire college community.
• To encourage critical thinking skills for the entire student body by open discussion on a common theme.
• To enhance academic and community awareness.
• To provide students with a positive reading experience

 

 

How To Love A Country

Poems by

Richard Blanco

 

About the Book

Amazon.com: How to Love a Country: Poems: 9780807025918: Blanco, Richard: Books

 

Through an oracular yet intimate and accessible voice, Richard Blanco addresses the complexities and contradictions of our nationhood and the unresolved sociopolitical matters that affect us all. Blanco digs deep into the very marrow of our nation through poems that interrogate our past and present, grieve our injustices, and note our flaws, but also remember to celebrate our ideals and cling to our hopes. Charged with the utopian idea that no single narrative is more important than another, this book asserts that America could and ought someday to be a country where all narratives converge into one, a country we can all be proud to love and where we can all truly thrive.

The poems form a mosaic of seemingly varied topics: the Pulse nightclub massacre; an unexpected encounter on a visit to Cuba; the forced exile of 8,500 Navajos in 1868; a lynching in Alabama; the arrival of a young Chinese woman at Angel Island in 1938; the incarceration of a gifted writer; and the poet’s abiding love for his partner, who he is finally allowed to wed as a gay man. But despite each poem’s unique concern or occasion, all are fundamentally struggling with the overwhelming question of how to love this country.

 

 

 

About the Author/Bio Note

https://richard-blanco.com/contact/

 

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.

 

Latest News

Click here:  Latest News | Richard Blanco (richard-blanco.com)

 

List of Past LC Reads Book Choices

2011 – A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

2012 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2013 – No Turning Back:  One Man’s Inspiring True Story of Courage, Determination, and Hope by Brian Anderson with Davis Alan Mack

2014 – Saddle Up, Charlie:  Charles Wysocki’s Journey from Gridiron Glory into Mental Illness by C. Terry Walters and Charlie Wysocki

2015 – Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

2016 – I am Malala:  The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

2017 – Hot Dogs & Hamburgers:  Unlocking Life’s Potential by Inspiring Literacy at Any Age by Rob Shindler

2018 – UGH!?! Not Another Diversity Book!  “When Multicultural Competence Meets a Real Reality” by Justin LaKyle Brown

2019 – Note to Self:  Inspiring Words from Inspiring People by Gayle King

2020 – Send Judah First:  The Erased Life of an Enslaved Soul by Brian C. Johnson

2021 – Look Back to Yesterday by Tara Lynn Marta

2022 – Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt

2023 - Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School? by Cary Siegel

 

Poetry Open Mic Night

Thursday, November 7, 2024 @ 6PM

Henkelman Room of the Albright Memorial Library

Flyers will be posted around the college as we get closer to the event.

 

Help Choose the 2025-2026 LC Reads Book!

LC Reads is looking for suggestions from you!  What do you like to read, what are you interested in, what would you suggest to incoming freshmen for 2025-2026?  Many of our LC Reads book choices have come from these suggestions.  Please send your ideas and suggestions to KiehartC@lackawanna.edu or BradiganN@lackawanna.edu by Friday, March 14, 2025. 

 

Essay Contest 

Responses to the essay prompt will be judged based on a demonstrated ability to think critically about the prompt, responsiveness to the prompt, and grammar. The winner will receive a prize of a $50 Visa gift card. Responses should be no longer than 500 words and can be submitted as an attachment to KurillaE@lackawanna.edu by the deadline of Friday, November 1, 2024.  Your essay must be entirely your original work – An AI submitted essay will disqualify your entry. 

 

Additional guidelines for essay:

• Your essay should include:  One-inch margins, Times New Roman, 12-point font, 500-word maximum, and double spaced.
• Essays should be entirely original work responding the prompt.  An AI submitted essay will disqualify your entry.
• Cover page should include your name, title of essay, Falcon’s email, and current cell phone number.

 

Essay Prompt

 

Choose one of the poems in the book that made you stop, reread, and connects with the printed words.  What was it about the poem that made you stop, reread, and connect?

 

Poetry Contest

This contest focuses on writing a poem because you want to capture a feeling that you experienced by reading How To Love a Country.  Just write whatever feels right. Only you experienced the feeling that you want to express, so why not share those feelings through poetry.  Your poem must be entirely your original work – An AI submitted poem will disqualify your entry.

 

The winner will receive a prize of a $50 Visa gift card.  Their poem will be presented at the Poetry Open Mic Night on Thursday, November 7, 2024.  Runners-up may also be asked to present their submissions.  Poems should be no longer than 1-2 pages long and can be submitted as an attachment to FanelliB@lackawanna.edu by the deadline of Friday, November 1, 2024.

 

 

Guidelines for Poetry Entry/Poetry Rubric:

Category	Score
Poetic Devices: A minimum of four poetic devices are used (metaphor, simile, alliteration, etc.).  The devices are used correctly (i.e. a metaphor is used as a metaphor).	______/30
Organization: The poem is very well organized. One idea or image follows another in a logical sequence with clear transitions.	______/20
Spelling, Grammar, Mechanics, etc.: There are no errors in the final draft. People or place names that the author invented are spelled consistently throughout.  End punctuation, and correct punctuation in general, is used throughout the poem.	______/15
Creativity: The poem contains sensory details, figurative language, and descriptions that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. The author has really used his or her imagination.	______/15
Title: Title is creative, sparks interest and is related to the poem and topic.	______/10
Quality Product: The final draft of the poem is typed in a 12-point, readable font and includes the student’s name in the upper-left hand margin with Falcon’s e-mail and current cell phone number.	______/10

                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Total: _______