CSPAN Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove December 25, 2017
Getting that metal, getting the National Medal of the arts meant, personally for me, it was quite an achievement and one that i felt really humbled to receive. That the arts mattered. And to have the arts recognized at that level of the country of government, it was a profound act. Not just for me, but for every young person in this country who wanted to express themselves, whether with paint, words, song, or bodies and dance. It meant all of those things. I wrote as a hobby and i did not know it could be a profession at all. I had no role models. I had never met a novelist or a poet. All of t...