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Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 19 Article 37 Issue 3 Fall

1989 Coming Home: An Interview with Rita Dove Steven Schneider

Rita Dove

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Recommended Citation Schneider, Steven and Rita Dove. "Coming Home: An Interview with Rita Dove." The Iowa Review 19.3 (1989): 112-123. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.3814

This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Coming Home: An Interview with Rita Dove Steven Schneider

Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1987 for her book Thomas and Beulah.

SS: How does it feel to be the first black woman poet sinceGwendolyn Brooks to win the Pulitzer Prize? RD: My first reactionwas quite simply disbelief. Disbelief that first of all there hasn't been another black person since Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, though there certainly have been some a outstanding black poets in that period. On public level, it says something nature in a about the of cultural politics this country. It's shame actually. a On personal level, it's overwhelming. SS: Did you feel you had written something special when you completed Thomas and Beulah? I RD: felt I had written something larger than myself, larger than what I to not as a as a had hoped for it be. I did begin this sequence book; it began a poem. The book grew poem by poem, and it wasn't until Iwas about third of theway through that I realized itwould have to be a book. So I grew with it and I had to rise to it. I started with the Thomas poems to more as because Iwanted understand my grandfather ?what he was like a young man, how he grew up and became the man I knew. To do that on on though, I realized pretty early that I could rely neither my memories of him nor on the memories of my mother or her sisters or brothers, but I had to get to know the town he lived in.What was Akron, Ohio like in the '20s and '30s? It was different from the Akron I knew. That meant I a never on had to go to the library and read whole bunch of stuff I counted to to a sense researching try get of that period of time in the industrial Midwest. On other levels, I had to enter male consciousness in a way which was?well, I knew I could do it for one or two poems but this was an was a extended effort. I really, at certain point, very very driven to be as as to or honest I could possibly be. Also, I didn't want impose my language ? my sensibility upon their lives. And things got SS: Things got very complicated? RD: That's right.

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University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org SS: Did you have a different kind of satisfaction about finishing this book than your other two books? to more RD: It was different. I am not going say Iwas satisfied; I don't a was a think I have favorite book of mine. But there feeling of relief be cause I had made it through. SS: How long did it take you to write Thomas andBeulah? was on RD: About five years. I working theMuseum poems in the middle of that, too. So, altogether five years. to me SS: You've mentioned that your life has been quite hectic since you won the Pulitzer. How does this affect your life and your writing? a RD: First of all, the act of writing is such private, basic matter. It's you a room a and the poem, you and the pencil and the paper in under circle of essence lamplight. And that is the of writing. A public life, then, becomes on one to to schizophrenic; the hand, you have extend yourself and talk an cannot people about your writing, experience which you really articu to late. To talk about private experience total strangers is very schizo a to out phrenic. Once in while it's good get and do readings because the on are shadows the wall grow large when you writing. But in this past year a a too ?or and half, I sometimes feel I have been little public let's just say I on feel the public encroaching the private time. to are to SS: Are things getting back normal now? Do you find you able on a work regular schedule? are to reasons. RD: Things getting back normal for several One of them is that I think I've learned a little bit how to livewith the public life and not sector. not to let it affect the private Also how feel guilty about saying "No." some a so can SS: For writers, winning such prize young block their to come. to creative output for years How do you respond creatively the pressures of fame? RD: I remember when I first got the Pulitzer, the question that came up in every interview was: "Does this put pressure on you now for your next in me out book?" And those first weeks afterward, the question always hit of left field.What did they mean? SS: You didn't feel pressured until they started asking you. at a an RD: Exactly. I didn't feel it all. So in way, it is artificial pressure. one num It's particularly artificial if really sits down and thinks about the ber of people who have gotten Pulitzers and how many of them stayed

113 at "famous." If you look the list, it's very interesting. Nothing's guaran teed. some SS: So Pulitzer winners have declined in reputation? RD: Sure, some Nobel Laureates as well. SS: So that takes some pressure off? RD: Right. And taking that further, what does itmean? Imean it's won room derful, but in the end, what is important to me? When I go into the to a mean a am as and try write poem, the Pulitzer doesn't thing. I still just challenged by the blank page. SS: Much has been said about the number of black writers who seem to re have been ignored by the literary establishment. This surfaced again cently when James Baldwin died. Do you think the literary establishment has been unfair to black writers? course not RD: Of it has been unfair ?this is true only for black writers, but for other minorities as well. It is outrageous that James Baldwin never a got Pulitzer Prize. It's outrageous that Ralph Ellison didn't get every lit erary award around for Invisible Man. to canon more SS: There have been recent attempts revise the and to give to attention to women writers and minority writers in America. Are you gratified by these attempts? Are they going far enough? I are are RD: think they absolutely necessary. I can't say whether they go ing far enough: it depends where, in what context. But it's important to to out. or try round those things Let's face it: if Gwendolyn Brooks Toni are not on Morrison the reading lists for Ph.D. dissertations, students aren't going to read them. SS: So what do you think your winning the Pulitzer Prize for poetry means to other young black American writers? was a me RD: When I growing up it would have meant lot to to know a or that black person had been recognized for his her writing. Thomas and a ones Beulah is book about black Americans, and two very ordinary at that. Nothing spectacular happens in their life. And yet this "non-sensa a tional" double portrait is awarded prize. That's what is important. You some SS: mentioned you talked recently with South African writers. more Does winning the Pulitzer Prize give you political leverage and visibility? RD: The Pulitzer does carry international credentials. In the past year and a half I have had increased opportunities to talk and to meet with writers of

114 see other countries and to how they live. Because of the Pulitzer, I got the chance to do a conversation via satellite with some South African writers. I not a may have the chance of going there, which is certainly going to be to see pleasure trip. I feel the need the situation there for myself if it's pos sible. SS: Let's talk about Thomas and Beulah. Your interest in these characters a as a resulted from story your grandmother told you child. Is that right? in was RD: Yes. That story actually became the first poem the book. I or me about ten twelve when she told about my grandfather coming north on a river boat; it seems he had dared his best friend to swim the river, and a event. the friend drowned. This was, for me, phenomenal My grand man. see father had been a very gentle and quiet Frankly, I couldn't how he could have carried that kind of guilt around all those years. I found it in never credible that I had heard the story before. In the writing, I had to confront several problems: How could he have borne it? How does anyone bear guilt that is irretrievable? set out on a to SS: Did you consciously quest reclaim your roots? was a to RD: No. Not consciously. Though it conscious attempt under stand someone who had meant a lot to me, who was part of me. And in do more more was ing that I got drawn and into my family history which per me a fectly fine and kind of wonderful. It gave doorway into my history. I a I on had hinge, something that could work and through. I ended up talk to a a ing lot of people about my grandparents; I learned lot about my roots that doesn't even appear in the book. to SS: Certainly that knowledge becomes meaningful you and who you are today. was RD: Yes, exactly. I think I always working toward that. Now, when I on see look back the three books that I have done and how they move, I to own understand that old adage about coming back your backyard. But it is almost as if I started out in The Yellow House on theCorner with a very a domestic scene, real neighborhood. The second book, Museum, was more art to much about and artifact, and attempts register personal human experience against the larger context of history. are some SS: There family poems inMuseum too. in one RD: Yes?but the family poems that book constitute section only; the are in overwhelming majority portraits of individuals their particular historical context.

115 era SS: How did you go about recreating the of Thomas and Beulah's mi gration? on KD: I read everything I could get my hands about the migration from the rural south to the industrial north. The WPA books that were done on state were each especially invaluable. SS: So there were lots of details you had to track down. RD: the stuff that will out of the next edition of the Exactly drop Encyclo Iwas to that so I pedia Britannica, right? trying get that feeling, ambiance, an talked to my mother awful lot about what itwas like growing up at that time. She was remarkable. At first she asked, "What do you want to hear?" But I didn't know what Iwanted to hear. I just wanted her to talk, and that's what she did. I amassed so much material; then I had to kind of to forget it all in order write the poems. SS: You have said of Thomas andBeulah that "less and less did it become on a was a based my grandparents because after while I after different kind were of truth." What is the larger truth you after? was essence sur RD: I after the of my grandparents' existence and their not vival, necessarily the facts of their survival. That's the distinction I'm to trying make. So when I said it became less and less about them, Imeant I was not so concerned about whether Thomas in the book was born the same as or year my grandfather (he wasn't, incidentally) whether in fact it was a or not. yellow scarf he gave Beulah What's important is the gesture to re of that scarf. One appropriates certain gestures from the factual life a sense inforce larger of truth that is not, strictly speaking, reality. a SS: Is there something especially significant about generation like Thomas and Beulah's which had to uproot itself?in this case, from the South, in order to work in northern cities? course. to RD: Yes, of Only very recently have historians begun explore era as that entire in any depth and what impact the great migration, they on not commu call it now, had only southern communities and northern a or nities but host of other things. So much has been done talked about the was a uprooting of the black family through slavery, but this second up rooting and displacement. It's the first time that blacks in this country had any chance, however stifled, of pursuing "the American dream." Obvi not same as not even as os ously with the advantages whites, the otherwise so a era. never tracized European immigrants, and it is very poignant I was a heard very much about itwhen I child. Iwondered why my cousins

116 a we It from Cleveland spoke with southern accent, but didn't. wasn't that were unusual that entire communities brought up and resettled around a movement in our each other. It's major population country that just went largely unrecorded. a SS: Did you begin with the notion of writing such closely knit sequence where many of the poems depend upon previous ones? RD: As I said earlier, when I started out I did not think in terms of a I start out a book. did with single poem. Then I thought, "This isn't went on. was to a enough," and I I thought I going have suite of poems, a or seven. want group of six At that point I did them narrative; I thought a to there must be way get back into poetry the grandness that narrative can not give, plus the sweep of time. Lyric poetry does have that sweep of a time. Lyrics are discrete moments. On the other hand, lot of narrative can to poems tend bog down in the prosier transitional moments. I didn't see very many long narrative poems that really weren't smaller poems one was to was mo linked together. So of the things I trying do string as on a ments beads necklace. In other words, I have lyric poems which, one reconstruct I when placed after the other, the sweep of time. wanted it a so to all. Iwanted narrative and Iwanted lyric poems, I tried do them both. seem more ? SS: Some of the poems capable of standing alone than others on our "Jiving" and "Lightning Blues" for example. Many others depend ones. reading of the previous warn RD: At the beginning of the book I that these poems are meant to be read in sequence. I put that in there because the poems make most sense even some are when read in order. But though of the poems absolutely de on was pendent others, in the writing I still trying very hard to make each a a poem wholly self-sufficient, of piece. In other words, particular poem on an may be dependent earlier poem for its maximum meaning, but in a to to itself it is complete poem. It just happens need another beat make the best connection.

SS: A few of the poems have italicized song-like rhymes that sound like or I am they might derive from southern minstrels gospels. especially me a one thinking of "Refrain." Let just read you few of these. This is the I really love. a Take gourd and string it a it Take banana and peel

117 a Buy baby blueNash and wheel and deal it. Count kisses sweet as your honey Count boss' your dirty money.

What's the origin of those lyrics? I are in are RD: made them up. They the spirit of country blues. They also as a influenced by spirituals and gospels. The poem "Gospel" begins take on so off "Swing Low Sweet Chariot." It starts off: "Swing low I / can are step inside." Both "Refrain" and "Gospel" written in quatrains, and I a roots think there's quite kinship between them. The ?no, let's say the are connections?between gospel and blues very close. to SS: Were you listening recent blues recordings? to RD: No. Mostly older blues recordings though I have listened recent ones too. was was a While I writing this book I playing lot of music, to ones or everything from Lightnin' Hopkins older like Larry Jackson some of the recordings that Al Lomax made of musicians, all the way up to to Billie Holliday, stopping about in the '50s. It seemed be the music for the book.

SS: Let's talk about Akron, Ohio, the town where Thomas and Beulah Your serves as a lived. book commentary and history of that place with its zeppelin factory and Satisfaction Coal Company, and its impoverishment during the Depression. This kind of social realism in your work seems some a striking and in ways departure from your earlier work. At some in RD: point the writing, I knew the poems needed background; to a I realized that I had give history of the town. I can't say I approached this task with joy. After all, Akron is not a tourist attraction. Let's face it: us were as a few of born in beautiful places. Yet I remember Akron, Ohio to a cannot place of beauty. Rilke says in his Letters Young Poet, that if you recount a not the riches of place do blame the place?blame yourself, be cause are not you rich enough to recall its riches. When I read that again, I realized that I'dbe doing Akron an injustice if Iwould just dwell on its in not or across some dustrial ugliness, and if I could explain bring of its or come to was magic make it alive others, then it my problem, certainly not Akron's.

SS: Does Thomas and Beulah feel like a different book from your earlier ones? a came RD: I think it is departure from my other work ?rather, I home.

118 a a And, rather than collection of poems, each working out discrete uni a to verse, Thomas and Beulah is string of moments that work together de fine a universe much in the way a necklace defines the neck and shoulders. In my first book, The Yellow House on the Corner, there was an entire sec a tion dealing with aspects of slavery; Museum is somewhat of hodgepodge of various social and political realities and how individuals work within them. Thomas and Beulah is the first sustained effort at sequence. to me SS: It seemed that especially in Yellow House and in places inMuseum more a to some there is of surrealistic feeling of the poems. In Thomas and we as seems more Beulah don't get much ofthat. It much grounded in the place and in the time and in the people. RD: The word "surrealistic" has been used quite often in describing my Imust I never work, and say have always been amazed by it. I thought of as myself being surrealistic. SS: Maybe "deep image." now RD: No. Obviously, though, this is what people think of it. So I kind of smile; I'm not going to escape this world. Imean, I accept it as a fair To me or an judgment. magic, the existence of unexplainable occurrence, to is something I grew up with. One shouldn't try explain everything. I to to to learned live with paradox, accept strange happenings. I listened a to older people talking about, for example, person who refused die easy came to a and back haunt. In terms of memory and guilt, that makes lot of sense to me. I'm not Now talking about ghost stories; I'm talking about to a how live with strangeness. And for minority, particularly black people are on growing up in America, a lot of surreal things going all the time. SS: One interesting thing about the Thomas section of the book is that Lern really haunts Thomas throughout. I find that very moving. Is this on to based the story you referred earlier from your grandmother? RD: Yes, yes. And you know the only facts that I had in the story were come a that my grandfather had up the river with good friend and that the man. friend had died. I knew nothing about the In fact, my grandfather never to us as mentioned the story children. The idea of Lern haunting him grew out of the poems ?it actually grew out of the character of Thomas andwhat I felt he would have done.

SS: Another question about Thomas. He comes across in some ways as a real lady'sman. How did Beulah tie him down? RD: I don't know! Imean I ... come across think that he might that

119 a man was way, but his being lady's constrained by the death of his friend. a to out In way, he is trying play his way of hell. to SS: Of course, the other side of it is he is very dedicated his family. a case mourns RD: He's classic in that he the youth he had, but he can't get back to it anyway. I think it would be untrue for any of us to say we haven't felt that at some point. You feel you want to let go of all the stuff to as that starts attaching itself you you grow up, but you can't do it any more. SS: The bills have to be paid.What is it that you admire about Beulah? And what is it you would like to honor in her? as a woman no RD: I think of Beulah being very strong who still has way one to of showing how strong she could be. She is the who really wants to see travel, the world. She is curious; she is intelligent; and her situation not to in life does allow her pursue her curiosity. If there is anything Iwant to honor in her, it is that spirit. SS: The sense of sacrifice? one RD: Certainly that too, but lots of people make sacrifices. It's the way handles sacrifice that's crucial. SS: She did it gracefully. not too not RD: She did it gracefully, but gracefully?that is, without a spunk. It's important that people know there's struggle involved, that to not to the sacrifice is being made. You have learn be crushed by what you can't do. seem SS: Both Thomas and Beulah relatively free of gnawing bitterness some towards their environment, towards whites, despite difficult cir cumstances, very difficult circumstances. Is there a lesson in this? me a to RD: A lesson? Let take different tack. We tend forget that there not were generations upon generations of black Americans who did have mean to was no the luxury of bitterness. I don't suggest that there bitter to to ness, just that you had enough do with surviving. You had eat first. This drive for survival above all else could lead to a certain autism; one's

personality freezes. movement The civil rights and the rise of black consciousness in the 1960s made the release of emotion ?anger, elation, fury, righteousness?pos so sible. One could get emotions out without being poisonous and still be able to go on with life. But Thomas and Beulah came from a different gen an era was no eration, from when there point in talking about what white

120 not. was a mean people had and black people did That fact of life ?it didn't mean was were a they liked it, it didn't they thought it right. But there few more to was a pressing matters talk about. Inequality given. I know how our impatient we became with grandparents in the '60s and our great we or aunts, when would call ourselves Afro-Americans black and they would continue to say "colored" and we'd go: "AHHHHH, come on." The impatience of youth. Why aren't Thomas and Beulah furious? Well, a they were, but they had different way of expressing it. SS: Both Beulah and Thomas grow old together, and sadness overtakes as we the readers read of their health problems and their demise. But they a on stick together and support each other. Is there commentary aging here a for society which is accused of neglecting its elderly? one RD: Yes. Certainly of the things I learned in writing Thomas and us are at one or not Beulah is that all of guilty time another of assigning reasons ?men other people their full human worth, for whatever having women or preconceived ideas of vice versa, racial prejudice, misconcep tions about the young and the old. In order to be able to understand my or woman grandfather, how my grandmother could be the she was, I had to was a me. go back and revision their youth. It humbling experience for And there are certain satisfactions with age that we tend not to think about.

SS: Thomas and Beulah are there for each other to the very end. That kind as as a of commitment through thick and thin, sappy itmay sound, is strik ing part of the book. RD: I received essays written in the form of letters from students at Brown University. One student thought Thomas and Beulah didn't like at was Iwas each other all, that the marriage very sad. absolutely amazed at our that notion. It must have something to do with concept of love ?that we are to if young it is going be romantic all the way through. In the poem we were we "Company" Beulah said: "Listen: good, / though never be it." I lieved remember that absolutely calm feeling that my grandparents a sense see to had, of belonging together. Today I young lovers struggling a a find earth-shattering ecstasy in every second. That's part of love, but it's small part. SS: is a There kind of ripeness about their love that is unusual and that only comes with age. RD: Absolutely.

121 on SS: What does the future hold for Rita Dove? Do you plan writing or more poetry trying a novel? to more RD: More poems, of course, and I definitely plan write fiction. a now. I'm writing novel right Why not? a more in next SS: Will you be doing lot teaching? Or traveling the couple of years? RD: I have this year off, but Iwill be going back to teaching in the fall. I seems. enjoy teaching. Travel is always inmy life. I'm always traveling, it SS: We mentioned fiction and you do have that one book of short stories Do find the two activities (Fifth Sunday). you ?writing fiction, writing or as poetry?mutually supportive do you think of them separate, unrelated activities? Is there any kind of schizophrenia about it? Or is it just natural? are same RD: I think that they part of the process. It's all writing; there are just different ways of going about it. I don't find them compatible in sense am am not to a the that when I writing poetry I usually going start a am a ex story. If I'm writing story I in slightly different mode. I can't not as severe as plain what it is?it's speaking another language. Still, I as think the notion of prose writing and poetry writing separate entities as a aca has been artificially created, partly result of fitting writing into the it to demic curriculum where is easiest teach them separately. That's valid no reason to pedagogical methodology, but there is for them exist separ was ately outside the workshop. One of the things I deplored when I in was were graduate school just how separate the two kept; fiction writers even to same and the poetry writers didn't go the parties. SS: This is the final question. It's actually two. Does writing poetry enable to more aware you be fully of who you are? Is it the bliss of writing that at tracts you? some RD: (after hesitation) No. It isn't the bliss of writing but the bliss of was to unfolding. I hesitating with the question because Iwanted consider to answer how go about making my clear without making it sound corny. a I don't think poetry is going to make anyone better person, and it is not to save a constant me. an going you. But writing is for There's edge that to needs be explored, the edge between being unconscious and then sud so aware me more denly being that the skin tingles. Let be precise. There is moment a to come that in the writing of poem when things start together, a coalesce into discovery. This is sheer bliss, and has something to do with mean discovering something about myself. It doesn't I understand myself;

122 more more. in fact, the Iwrite the less I know of myself. But I also learn into interior. I Territory is being covered ?excursions the write for those are two in one is moments of discovery really, but there steps this process: the intimate revelation, and the second step is to take that revelation and to ? ? make it visible palpable for others. one to to com It's thing experience strong emotion; it's another thing an municate it to others. I do believe that experience inarticulated will be as a one on to lost; part of my task writer, of the things I take and want do, to moments so no is articulate those they won't be lost. I think there is to greater joy than have someoneelse say,"I know what you mean." That's real corny, but it's what literature does for all of us, the reader aswell as the to to writer. An active reader longs be pulled into another's world and to into and comprehend that world, get another's skin utterly yet under at same an stand what's happening the time. That's immensely exciting thing. And that's what Iwork for.

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