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.

Things mentioned

Award Winning Poet Nikki Giovanni 

Dawn Revisited, a poem written by Rita Dove

American Poet Michael S. Harper 

What to read

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

Feeling Good - Nina Simone

So What - Miles Davis

Take the "A" Train - Duke Ellington 

Summertime - Ella Fitzgerald

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.