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
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.
It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.
It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.
I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.
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.
My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.
I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
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.
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.