Monday, September 9, 2019

Rita Dove Wins Wallace Stevens Award



Congratulations to Rita Dove, who received the annual Wallace Stevens Award last week from the Academy of American Poets

In celebration, let's enjoy her poem praising something I hold near and dear to my heart. (With special thanks to Ron Charles at the Washington Post).  



Chocolate 

Velvet fruit, exquisite square
I hold up to sniff
between finger and thumb—

how you numb me
with your rich attentions!
If I don’t eat you quickly, 

you’ll melt in my palm.
Pleasure seeker, if I let you
you’d liquefy everywhere. 

Knotted smoke, dark punch
of earth and night and leaf,
for a taste of you 

any woman would gladly
crumble to ruin.
Enough chatter: I am ready 

to fall in love!


by Rita Dove
From American Smooth, 2004 (W.W. Norton)



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