E56 Rita Dove: The Pleasure of Text.
Today’s episode is with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Author Rita Dove. Rita is a US Poet Laureate, the recipient of 29 honorary degrees…Yes, you heard correctly…29, and the only poet to be honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her portfolio of work is timeless, precise, and captures the complexity of life.
In today’s episode, we explore the pleasure of the text. We also journey through how using your imagination can help to get what you want, the role writing can play in the midst of chaos, and how Rita’s lived experience as a Black woman has shaped her understanding of the world.
Key Links:
Award Winning PoetNikki Giovanni
Dawn Revisited, a poem written by Rita Dove
American Poet Michael S. Harper
Key Readings:
Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove
Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 by Nikki Giovanni
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Pleasure of the Text written by Roland Barthes and translated by Richard Miller
Dear John, Dear Coltrane: Poems by Michael S Harper
Staged Otherness: Ethnic Shows in Central and Eastern Europe, 1850–1939 by Dagnosław Demski and Dominika Czarnecka
What to Listen to:
Take the "A" Train - Duke Ellington
This conversation was recorded on August 20th, 2022.
Host Dario Calmese
Producer: Coniqua Johnson
Visual Art Direction and Designs:
River Wildmen, Adam Selah, Will Domingue
Director of Digital Content: Vicky Garcia
Bookings: K.T. Thompson
Original Music composed by Adam Radice
Audio Edited by Adam Radice
Visit us at blackimagination.com
Watch this and other episodes on YouTube at: The Institute of Black Imagination.