My first advice would be to read, read, read, which sounds interesting coming in a digital age, but it's so much easier to listen to a poem than it is to sit down and actually read it and to hear it in your head and that is something that every poet or aspiring poet needs to be able to do, I think to hear it in their head.
Rita DoveI 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.
Rita DovePeople 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 DoveBeing 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 DoveWe tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there's a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry.poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.
Rita Dove