Romancing the Stone with Rita Dove
May
05
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| http://www.english.ohiou.edu/cw/slf_writer/1351 |
Rita Dove's lecture at the Spring Literary Festival in Athens, Ohio last night was as inspiring as I expected it to be.
She reminds writers that we shouldn't just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike us. We have to be both physically and mentally fit to make ourselves more receptive to possibilities in our writing. Whether this means simply writing at the time of day that we are most alert, or embracing the "curious mix" of being both "humble and selfish & modest and bodacious" in order to get our work done, Dove stresses that good writing takes hard work: "There are so many things you can do half-mast," she says. "Writing isn't one of them."
Every roadblock is an opportunity to explore the neighborhood -- Rita Dove
What I was most surprised to learn during Dove's lecture is that her Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems, Thomas and Beulah began as an exercise. After having finished writing a collection of poems, Dove says she gave herself an assignment to write poems in third person for a while. Exercises like this, she says, help "take the pressure off." And just look at what emerged out of this little assignment! The next time my students complain about doing craft-honing exercises, I am going to pull out this handy anecdote.
"Inspiration," I'll remind them, "comes to those who work."
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