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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.
Rita Dove
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Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Every
Lens
Would
Feared
Time
Lenses
Talked
Sex
Poetry
Race
Apprehensive
Age
Filtered
More quotes by Rita Dove
I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
Rita Dove
My inspiration comes from everywhere, just walking down the street and I never know where it's going to come from, so I keep a notebook with me at all times and the only criteria for anything making it into that notebook is if it stops me in my tracks for even an instant, if it catches my eye or my ear and I just write it down.
Rita Dove
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
Rita Dove
Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.
Rita Dove
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
Rita Dove
If you can't be free, be a mystery.
Rita Dove
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
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
Rita Dove
I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.
Rita Dove
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.
Rita Dove
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
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
Can it be that even as one grows to fit the space one lives in, one cannot grow until there's space to grow?
Rita Dove
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
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
Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
Rita Dove
A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.
Rita Dove
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
Rita Dove
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
Rita Dove
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
