My best times are midnight to six actually. I'll leaf through my notebooks and if something catches my eye and I feel like I want to transfer it from the notebook to the page, I do, and then comes this very strange process which is difficult to describe in that I'll write until I get stuck or I can't go any further or I'm boring myself or whatever and then I might go to another poem.
Rita DoveIf our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they canโt imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in Americaโs alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart โ and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.
Rita DoveI see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
Rita DoveI was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
Rita Dove