All Rita Dove Quotes
I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.
Rita Dove
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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
51% of people like this quote
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Rita Dove
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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
45% of people like this quote
I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
Rita Dove
45% of people like this quote
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