WEBVTT

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Good evening.

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When my treasured friend and
colleague, Diana Delgado,

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the Literary Director
of the Poetry Center,

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who is a brilliant
writer in her own right

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and has added so much vibrancy
to our creative community here,

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invited me to offer a very
brief introduction of poet

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and trailblazer Rita Dove,
the quite singular Rita Dove,

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I thought, wow,
this is the moment

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I survived the pandemic for.

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An incredible opportunity.

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It is truly my good fortune
to stand before you tonight.

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Of course, Rita Dove
requires no introduction.

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In 1993, she was
the youngest poet

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and first
African-American poet ever

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to be named US Poet
Laureate, and served

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two terms during
which she strove

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to bring access to
the literary arts

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to a wider range of communities.

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She is a Pulitzer
Prize winner, she

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has been awarded 29
honorary doctorates.

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Rita Dove is the only poet
honored with both the National

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Humanities Medal, and the
National Medal of Arts.

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In 2021, she was awarded
the gold medal for poetry

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from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters.

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Rita Dove is the author of
several collections of poetry,

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including Collected Poems 1974
to 2004, which was shortlisted

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for the National Book
Award, American Smooth,

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On the Bus with Rosa Parks,
and the Pulitzer Prize

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winning collection
Thomas and Beulah.

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In addition to writing a novel,
short stories, and a play that

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was produced at
the Kennedy Center

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for Performing Arts
in Washington, DC,

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she edited the Penguin Anthology
of 20th Century Poetry.

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Her recent works include
Sonata Mulattica and Playlist

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for the Apocalypse, which
Guernica Magazine Review calls

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"a beautiful collection in which
Dove takes us from the smallest

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moments of redemption
to catastrophic failures

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of the human soul."

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In a 2021 interview
for World Literature

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Today, Rita Dove
observed that poetry

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is the repository of our
collective emotional memory.

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In a poem published that same
year, Incantation of the First

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Order, Dove offers the lines:
"to those inclined toward

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kindness I say, come out
of your houses drumming.

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All others beware.

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I have discarded my
smile, but not my teeth."

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A most appropriate response
to the difficult social,

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cultural, and
political circumstances

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in which we currently find
ourselves the urgency of now

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in a complex tango with
always pending futures.

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Rita Dove understands the
art of magnifying moments,

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big and small, into eternity.

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She sketches the ordinary,
with pristine precision

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that is at once familiar
and otherworldly.

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Powerfully, she wields
archive and ephemera

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into critical magic.

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I encourage you to
discover yourself

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in the world Rita Dove's
word magic has crafted.

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Read as many of her
poems as you can.

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And Dove's 1992 poem,
a personal favorite,

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Demeter's Prayer to
Hades, Dove speaker

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tells us there are no
curses, only mirrors held up

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to the souls of
gods and mortals.

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Tonight may Rita Dove's
presence among us conjure

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and stir our collective
emotional memory.

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May this reading invoke our
spirits and our imaginations

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in ways that reflect back to us.

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The humanity yet
unrealized which

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we owe each other in pursuit
of our continued survival.

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It is my great
honor and pleasure

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to welcome the legendary
poet Rita Dove.

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[APPLAUSE]

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