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
To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more.
Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
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 was not interested in doing the plot of OEDIPUS in blackface. I did wonder, what would these people have been like if they hadn't been in that situation? . . . One could look at Oedipus, or at my character Augustus, as a cynical schemer who did everything because he was hungry for power. But that's just too easy. I'm more interested in how humans can embody conflicting goals and emotions.
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
I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.
It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles.
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.
My childhood library was small enough not to be intimidating. And yet I felt the whole world was contained in those two rooms. I could walk any aisle and smell wisdom.