Digital Verse

More than perhaps any other genre, poetry has the ability to unite past and present into a unified experience. Whether drawing from scattered memories of random passersby, the Napoleonic Wars, or the simple thought of the color blue, a good poem can elicit the basic truths of the human experience for centuries after its writing. In today’s Big Think interview with the former Poet Laureate Rita Dove, we learn her process for crafting the pieces that both investigate and transcend history as well as her belief in its prevalence in the future.

While poetry may seem at odds with the frantic pace of digital media, Dove believes that the medium is uniquely fit to be “zipped” across Twitter and other platforms and will reach a new standard of portability.

Dove even provides a great example of the beauty of this new era in quickly accessible verse, reciting one of her favorite poems—in German—as well as a verse from her new book “Sonata Mulattica.”