Rita Dove Quotes

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Rita Dove

Profession : Poet

Birth : August 28, 1952

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

Rita Dove

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

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

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

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

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.

Rita Dove

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.

Rita Dove

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.

Rita Dove

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.

Rita Dove

I write short stories, and I wrote a play.

Rita Dove

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

Rita Dove

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.

Rita Dove

I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.

Rita Dove

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

Rita Dove

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

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.

Rita Dove

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.

Rita Dove

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.

Rita Dove

I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

Rita Dove

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.

Rita Dove