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 41: Danez Smith
Episode 40: Kaveh Akbar
Episode 39: Erika L. Sánchez
Episode 38: Sharon Olds
Episode 37: Sheila Heti and Sarah Manguso
Episode 36: Dialogue Arts Project
Episode 35: Aracelis Girmay
Episode 34: Dr. Joshua Bennett
Episode 33: Sabrina Orah Mark
Episode 32: Laynie Browne
Episode 31: Carmen Giménez Smith
Episode 30: Sarah Vap
Episode 29: Molly Peacock
Episode 28: Poems for Mother's Day
Episode 26: Alice Notley
Episode 25: Ross Gay
Episode 24: Julie Carr
Episode 23: Morgan Parker
Episode 22: Undocupoets 2 — Javier Zamora, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, and Janine Joseph
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