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'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.
In fact, sometimes traveling the world is a way of not writing a poem, but it's the quality of experience. It's being able to experience something and when you begin to write about it be able to apply the tools that you need for writing.
I've always felt that the poems I've written which have historical context are hopefully not just simply plucking something out of history and saying great, let's write about that. In every case what has happened is that I've become fascinated or haunted by something and couldn't shake it.
I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.
What writing does is to reveal.
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.
I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person.
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.
One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits.
The First Book: Go ahead, it won't bite. Well... maybe a little. More a nip, like. A tingle. It's pleasurable, really. You see, it keeps on opening. You may fall in. Sure, it's hard to get started; remember learning to use knife and fork? Dig in: you'll never reach bottom. It's not like it's the end of the world -- just the world as you think you know it.
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.
For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about it. I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art.
I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers.