Rita Dove - An American Poet

Streaming video - 2014

The film is made in part of a series of in-depth, on-camera, conversations with Poet Laureate Rita Dove—conducted and recorded by Eduardo Montes-Bradley between September 2012, and October 2013. These conversations were later edited using with hundreds of still images and several hours of home movies from the Dove family's collection.. The intimacy of the dialogue accounts for a unique, and very personal insight into the wide range of Dove's artistic passions. Most of these images are the results of the efforts of Rita Dove's father (Ray A. Dove) to record family life in the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Ray Dove recorded in 8mm and Super 8mm birthdays, the opening of gifts on Christmas Day year after year, holidays and family excur...sions. According to the filmmaker, "Rita's father is omnipresent and perhaps the silent protagonist of the film as he captured images of Rita which have become fundamental clues to the evolution of the suburban middle class African American child into the celebrated poet we know and recognize.". more