Rita Dove Quotes

• I write short stories, and I wrote a play.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Play, Short, Write

• I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, s*x, and age.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Age

  Tags in Sex, Through

• 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

  Topics in Dream

  Tags in Older, Poet

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Try

• 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

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Come, Need

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Enjoy, Working, Process

• If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Trust

  Tags in Choice, Spirit

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Find, Read

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Find, Public, Exciting

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing, Around, Write

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Favorite, Bread

• 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

  Topics in Father, Mother

  Tags in Parents

• It’s unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there’s this need to have things quantified and graded.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Need, Sometimes, Schools

• 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

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Over, Sometimes

• 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

  Topics in Dream

  Tags in Different, American

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in End, Play, Whole

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Alone, Come, Before

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Same, Cheerful, Sound

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

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Joy

  Tags in Find, Working

• Libraries are where it all begins.

  Rita Dove

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Begin, Libraries

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 - 1st April

Births

• 1908 - Abraham Maslow
• 1929 - Milan Kundera
• 1939 - Ali MacGraw
• 1895 - Alberta Hunter
• 1826 - Lady Dorothy Nevill

Deaths

• 1991 - Martha Graham
• 1976 - Max Ernst
• 1993 - Alan Kulwicki
• 1984 - Marvin Gaye
• 1917 - Scott Joplin