Happenstance by Rita Dove
Happenstance
Rita DoveWhen you appeared it was as if
magnets cleared the air.
I had never seen that smile before
or your hair, flying silver. Someone
waving goodbye, she was silver, too.
Of course you didn’t see me.
I called softly so you could choose
not to answer – then called again.
You turned in the light, your eyes
seeking your name.
MARGINALIA
Because I remember you, love. And the times that I was used to. The times that I sometimes wish had never happened.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Collected Poems: 1974–2004 by Rita Dove, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2016. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Rita Dove’s Collected Poems 1974-2004 showcases the wide-ranging diversity that earned her a Pulitzer Prize, the position of U.S. poet laureate, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Medal of Art. Gathering thirty years and seven books, this volume compiles Dove’s fresh reflections on adolescence in The Yellow House on the Corner and her irreverent musings in Museum. She sets the moving love story of Thomas and Beulah against the backdrop of war, industrialization, and the civil right struggles. The multifaceted gems of Grace Notes, the exquisite reinvention of Greek myth in the sonnets of Mother Love, the troubling rapids of recent history in On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and the homage to America’s kaleidoscopic cultural heritage in American Smooth all celebrate Dove’s mastery of narrative context with lyrical finesse. With the “precise, singing lines” for which the Washington Post praised her, Dove “has created fresh configurations of the traditional and the experimental” (Poetry magazine).” (Source)
ABOUT RITA DOVE
Rita Dove (she/her) was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. A 1970 Presidential Scholar, she attended Miami University of Ohio, Universität Tübingen in Germany, and the University of Iowa, where she earned her creative writing MFA in 1977. In 1987, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poetry, Thomas and Beulah, and from 1993 to 1995, she served as U.S. Poet Laureate at the Library of Congress. Dove is a recipient of the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. (Source)
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