Rita Dove
Rita Dove
Rita Frances Doveis an American poet and author. From 1993 to 1995 she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African-American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position. Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1952
CityAkron, OH
When I was young, I was older than I am today.
If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.
Libraries are where it all begins.
Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.
The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now
The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something
I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.
I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.
If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer
Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.
In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things
There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry
Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither.
Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.