Rita Dove
I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Success
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.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Learning
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.Collection: Equality
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.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Poetry
If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.Collection: Trust
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.Collection: Poetry
The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.Collection: Poetry
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Alone
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.Collection: Amazing
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.Collection: Science
Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.Collection: Poetry
I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.Collection: Travel
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.Collection: Poetry
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.Collection: Poetry
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.Collection: Imagination
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.
When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.
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.
My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.
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.
There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.
I'm a night person. My best times are midnight to six, actually.
Libraries are where it all begins.
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 prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.
For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.
I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.
I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.
It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
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!
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.
Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.
I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.
I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.
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.
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.
The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with.
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
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.
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.
What writing does is to reveal.
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.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
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!