Rachel Zucker talks with Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, author of more than 15 books and University of Virginia professor about political poetry, creative writing programs, the usefulness of prosody, form as ‘a talisman against disintegration,’ the public intimacy of social media, her poem ‘Parsley,’ audience, code switching, why some poems are hard to read, blackness and other people’s expectations of her as a black woman, getting over the Iowa voice, narrative poetry, her book Thomas and Beulah, the myth of Persephone, Trump, motherhood, marriage, slavery, freedom, why she moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, being a musician and a ballroom dancer, the solace of rhyme, and embracing change.
EXTRA MATERIALS FOR EPISODE 27Books by Rita DoveCollected Poems: 1974-2004 (W.W. Norton, 2016)
Sonata Mulattica (W. W. Norton, 2010)
American Smooth (W. W. Norton, 2006)
The Darker Face of the Earth (Story Line Press, 2000)
On the Bus with Rosa Parks (W. W. Norton, 2000)
Mother Love (W. W. Norton, 1996)
Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie Mellon, 1996)
Through the Ivory Gate (Vintage, 1993)
Selected Poems (Vintage, 1993)
Museum (Carnegie Mellon, 1992)
Grace Notes (W. W. Norton, 1991)
Fifth Sunday (Callaloo, 1990)
The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie Mellon, 1989)
Books and Other Authors Mentioned in the EpisodeJefferson’s Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Puffin Books, 2013)
Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days (University of Iowa Press, 2010)
A Poet’s Glossary by Edward HIrsch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (W. W. Norton, 2001)
Gunter Grass
Laurel Snyder
The University of Virginia MFA program — Charles Wright, Gregory Orr, Lisa Russ Spaar, Paul Guest, Debra Nystrom
Rachel Zucker’s Eating in the Underworld (Wesleyan, 2003)
The Reaper Essays by Mark Jarman (Story Line Press, 1996)
Renga for Obama (organized by Major Jackson)
Tanks and the Bangas’ website and their Tiny Desk performance
Other Relevant LinksRita Dove’s poem “Parsley”
Iowa Writers’ Workshop
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
Ballroom dancing
Episode 81: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 2
Episode 80: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 1
Episode 79: Christine Larusso
Episode 78: Anne Boyer
Episode 77: Tina Chang
Episode 76: Ada Limón
Episode 75: Victoria Chang
Episode 74: Rachel Zucker's SoundMachine
Episode 73: Jennifer Croft (Translation Series Ep. 3)
Episode 72: Ilya Kaminsky
Episode 71: Mira Jacob
Episode 70: Alicia Jo Rabins
Episode 69: Live Reading with Brown, Joseph, Meitner Parker, Pico, Tolbert, and Yanyi
Episode 68: Live Reading w/ Calvocoressi, Falkner, Gay and Mark
Episode 67: John Biewen
Episode 66: Sarah Gambito
Episode 65: Hillary Frank
Episode 64: John Keene (Translation Series, Ep. 2)
Episode 63: Juliana Spahr
Episode 62: Khadijah Queen
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