Quotes by Rita Dove
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.
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.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
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.
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.
The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.
As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important.
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
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.
The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.
You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us.
I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers.
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.
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!
It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing.
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 see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
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.
