An introduction to Rita Dove by Grace Cavalieri
In a stunning video, Grace covers the life and work of the first female of color US Poet Laureate
"If critics look at a literary model of a balanced life, the thinking, feeling, sensual, and intuitive, this can be seen as a template for Rita Dove’s writing."
Grace Cavalieri's new web series "20th-Century Poets Commentaries" is off to a strong start with introductions and commentaries on such poets as Robert Hayden, Ted Kooser, Robert Pinsky, and Josephine Jacobsen.
Rita Dove, the first female of color to hold the vaunted position of US poet laureate, claims an important place in late 20th-century poetry and American history.
Her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Thomas and Beulah, Grace explains, displays her use of intuition in creating semi-biographical poems that reach, in Dove's words, to the "inner-truth."
You can support Grace's mission to create a video on every US Poet Laureate (and then some) by buying her book Other Voices, Other Lives.
All of her commentaries are produced by Forest Woods Media (a 501c3).
Featured Poetry: “Toytown” by Grace Cavalieri
The name Other Voices, Other Lives, is not purely poetical, in fact, for Grace Cavalieri it is a mission statement. In her Legacy Book of the same name there are several sections in 3rd person omnipotent which aim to breathe the same air as famous women who have suffered adversity. Tragic figure Anna Nicole Smith, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Cora from William Carlos William’s Kora in Hell. All in all they are an admix of Grace Cavalieri’s poetic life, all brought together in one beautiful volume; so, perhaps, we might figure that Anna Nicole Smith converses with Mary Wollstonecraft for the very first time in the pages of Other Voices, Other Lives.
Today, from the Anna section we have the heart-rending “Toytown”
Talking Jazz and Rock with Poet Reuben Jackson (Laura Ritchie)
Author and music educator Lauren Ritchie sat down with ASP’s Reuben Jackson this week to talk jazz with the man himself. Reuben’s music credentials are long and impressive, from curating the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian to hosting a weekly Jazz radio show for NPR Vermont, to his poetry which takes inspiration from and frequently comments on the American Jazz idiom. Listen to or read the interview…
Rose Solari talks with Acclaimed Poet David Gewanter
This Sunday, October 21, at 8 p.m., ASP’s Rose Solari is reading with acclaimed poet, essayist, editor, and professor David Gewanter in a new poetry reading series at Second Story Books, 2000 P Street NW, Washington DC. In preparation for their reading, Rose talked with David about his work, particularly his most recent collection, Fort Necessity. Here is a part of their discussion…