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
People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable.
My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!
Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?
I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.
I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.
Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.
My inspiration comes from everywhere, just walking down the street and I never know where it's going to come from, so I keep a notebook with me at all times and the only criteria for anything making it into that notebook is if it stops me in my tracks for even an instant, if it catches my eye or my ear and I just write it down.
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.
The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.