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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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Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Think
Alive
Thinking
Reading
Utter
Ability
Strangers
Young
Resurrection
Come
Shakespeare
Play
Plays
Important
Extremely
Make
Stranger

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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.
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Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.
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Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
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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.
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Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?
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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.
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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!
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I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
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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.
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I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
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I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.
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I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
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I've always felt that the poems I've written which have historical context are hopefully not just simply plucking something out of history and saying great, let's write about that. In every case what has happened is that I've become fascinated or haunted by something and couldn't shake it.
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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.
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At the very beginning when I begin writing a poem I try not to think of the audience or anyone at all except for trying to get at the very center of what is driving that poem. In a way it's like analyzing myself.
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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
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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.
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I change jobs like drinking water ... And as I grow accustomed to the new flavor of a drink I regard as delicious, yes, vital, something fades, life balks. So I break camp I shed skins.
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Libraries are where it all begins.
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Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
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