I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.
— Rita Dove
I'm a night person. My best times are midnight to six, actually.
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.
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.
Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.
Libraries are where it all begins.
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.
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.
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.
What writing does is to reveal.
If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer.
There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.
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.
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.
I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
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.
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!
Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
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.
It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.
I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.
I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us.
If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.
The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.
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.
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
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.
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.
Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.
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.
