Top 62 Quotes by Rita Dove

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.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

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.

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.

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.

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing.

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.

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.

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.

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!