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" Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely. "
Rita Dove
Library
Feeling
Choose
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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
Twilight
World
Page
" 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
Poetry
Time
Lens
" 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
Impossible
Imagination
Evidence
" 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. "
Rita Dove
Moments
Myself
Think
" It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded. "
Rita Dove
Need
Sometimes
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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. "
Rita Dove
Eternity
Community
Will
" I make a discovery in a poem as I write it. "
Rita Dove
Write
Discovery
I Write
" I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more. "
Rita Dove
High School
Think
Science
" Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor. "
Rita Dove
Should
Name
Divided
" 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
God
Thought
Loved
" Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit. "
Rita Dove
Human Spirit
Yourself
True
" Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. "
Rita Dove
Powerful
Poetry
Language
" 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
He
Important
Reading
" 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. "
Rita Dove
Shadow
Time
Think
" I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it. "
Rita Dove
People
Creativity
I Believe
" I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things. "
Rita Dove
Always
Away
Loved
" 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
Love
Poem
Process
" It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles. "
Rita Dove
Colors
Christian
People
" I write short stories, and I wrote a play. "
Rita Dove
Write
Stories
Wrote
" What writing does is to reveal. "
Rita Dove
Does
Reveal
Writing
" 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
Think
Sometimes
People
" I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them. "
Rita Dove
Children
Insight
Out
" Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry. "
Rita Dove
Nothing
Worthy
Measure
" 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
Art
How
Literature
" Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet. "
Rita Dove
Voice
Capable
I Can
" 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
People
American Dream
American
" As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important. "
Rita Dove
Woman
History
School
" Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture. "
Rita Dove
Someone
Poetry
Good
" I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels. "
Rita Dove
Up
Black And White
People
" 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
I Am
Interest
I See