Rita Dove Quotes

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.
Rita Dove

Music, Poetry, Two

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!
Rita Dove

Dream, Older, Poet

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.
Rita Dove

Age, Time, Poetry

I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
Rita Dove

Play, Short, Write

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.
Rita Dove

Love, Find, Themselves

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.
Rita Dove

Love, Enjoy, Working

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.
Rita Dove

Poetry, Children, Trying

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.
Rita Dove

Life, Writing, Around

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.
Rita Dove

Find, Public, Exciting

It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.
Rita Dove

Sometimes, Schools

Libraries are where it all begins.
Rita Dove

Begins, Libraries

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.
Rita Dove

Learning, Mother, Father

My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.
Rita Dove

May, Favorite, Bread

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.
Rita Dove

Alone, Before, Community

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.
Rita Dove

Country, Sometimes, Write

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
Rita Dove

End, Play, Whole

The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now.
Rita Dove

Different, Dream, American

The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
Rita Dove

Find, Joy, Working

The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.
Rita Dove

Poetry, Seen, Clouds

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.
Rita Dove

Poetry, Plan, Reading

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.
Rita Dove

Else, Matter, Write

Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.
Rita Dove

Human, Words, Find

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!
Rita Dove

Death, Bring, Took

What writing does is to reveal.
Rita Dove

Writing, Reveal

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.
Rita Dove

Success, Imagine, Arts

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Poet

Born: August 28, 1952

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