Rita Dove on the Literary Family

I feel a part of a literary family, a community of both living and dead poets. In the way of families, I may argue vehemently with other relatives sometimes, but empathy-the fact of inclusion-is always there… I remember discovering Langston Hughes in an anthology when I wsa in my teens and reading a poem like Dream Boogie , where the language leaps all over the page, and recognizing a part of my life that I hadn’t ever encountered in a poem before. That recognition is incredibly vital to my personal and spiritual identity.
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