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

Rita Dove

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Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Choice
Level
Trust
Levels
Full
Choices
Spirit
Distrust
Really
Generous

More quotes by Rita Dove

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Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
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Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.
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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.
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If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.
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I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
Rita Dove
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Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
Rita Dove
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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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What writing does is to reveal.
Rita Dove
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I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
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 the lack of respect artists got here. In my heart, I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art.
Rita Dove
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If you can't be free, be a mystery.
Rita Dove
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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
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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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Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither.
Rita Dove
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The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
Rita Dove
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For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
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'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.
Rita Dove
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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
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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