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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.

Rita Dove

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Rita Dove
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 28
Essayist
Poet
Professor
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Rita Frances Dove
Great
Simply
Context
Writing
Saying
Poems
Every
Written
Fascinated
Something
Happened
Hopefully
Always
History
Historical
Plucking
Write
Case
Haunted
Felt
Couldn
Shake
Become
Cases
Shakes

More quotes by Rita Dove

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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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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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I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
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The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
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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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Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.
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When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
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Libraries are where it all begins.
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We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.
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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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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.
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I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
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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.
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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.
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What writing does is to reveal.
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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.
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I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
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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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Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
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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