Rita Dove Quotes

• A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It’s concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Someone, Ever, Body

• Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Yourself, True, Human

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Made, Public, Realize

• All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Myself, Back, Come

• Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Feeling, Book

• For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thought, Heard

• 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

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Understand, Fail

• I didn’t know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Live, Real, Knew

• I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that’s only the first step.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Step, Carry, Everywhere

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Day, Feel, Keep

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Day, Through

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe, Mean

• 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.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in God

  Tags in Person

• I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lives, Moments, Details

• I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Less, Interest, Poetry

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Talent, Insight

• I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thought, Put

• I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nothing, Amazing, Thought

• I think reading Shakespeare’s plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Important, Come, Young

Rita Dove (50)

Birth:	28th August, 1952
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Poet

About

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. From 1993–1995 she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She was the first African American to be appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 out of the previous "consultant in poetry" position.

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Today's Anniversary - 28th March

Births

• 1940 - Russell Banks
• 1955 - Reba McEntire
• 1978 - Nafisa Joseph
• 1942 - Daniel Clement Dennett
• 1820 - William Howard Russell

Deaths

• 1953 - Valentine de Saint Point
• 1969 - Dwight D. Eisenhower
• 1941 - Virginia Woolf
• 1886 - Richard Chenevix Trench
• 1994 - Eugene Ionesco