BETHEL — Down Home Maine: A Conversation About Cuba with Richard Blanco will be held Tuesday, Jan. 12 from 4:30-6 p.m. at McLaughlin, Gould Academy. This will be an informative conversation and Q&A with author and 2013 inaugural poet Richard Blanco about what it means to be Cuban, what it means to be American, and how he strives to “mend the two halves of himself.”

It will be helpful to have read Richard’s poem “Matters of the Sea,” written for the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, and its preface; both are contained in a chapbook which is available at Books N Things in Norway or at the Bethel Library.

This event, sponsored by Western Mountains Senior College, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact 890-4812 or amy.w.chapman@gmail.com.