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 mentionedAward Winning Poet Nikki Giovanni Dawn Revisited, a poem written by Rita DoveAmerican Poet Michael S. Harper What to readPlaylist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove Thomas and Beulah by Rita DoveThe Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 by Nikki GiovanniI 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 HarperStaged Otherness: Ethnic Shows in Central and Eastern Europe, 1850–1939 by Dagnosław Demski and Dominika CzarneckaWhat to listen toFeeling Good - Nina SimoneSo What - Miles DavisTake the "A" Train - Duke Ellington Summertime - Ella FitzgeraldThis conversation was recorded on August 20th, 2022.Host Dario Calmese Producer: Coniqua Johnson Visual Art Direction and Designs: River Wildmen, Adam Selah,