“If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.”

American poet and essayist

Rita Dove is an American poet and essayist, born in 1952. She is known for her poetry and for the honors that placed her among the most visible American writers of her generation. She served as poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, becoming the first African American to hold that post after it was created in 1986. In 1987, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and she later served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has taught at the University of Virginia.