Explore the poem

This poem is set at a time in America when black people and white people had to go to different schools and restaurants, and sit in different parts of buses. One day, Rosa Parks, a black woman, changed the course of history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. In the poem Rita Dove focusses on Rosa and her simple, peaceful and powerful act of protest.

You might like to find out more about what happened by visiting BBC Bitesize here or doing your own research about Rosa Parks.

Think about the opening line of the poem, “How she sat there”. It’s as if we’ve just tuned into the poet thinking aloud about Rosa Parks. Try saying the poem’s first line in different ways to capture the mood – pensive? admiring? arresting?

Then think about the importance of the line, “Doing nothing was the doing”. How can you use your voice to convey the tension between action and inaction?

Experiment with the pace of your recitation. In just 59 words or 12 lines Rita Dove captures a life-changing moment for Rosa Parks and a history-defining moment for America and the world. You want your listener to catch this moment.

About Rita Dove

Critic and poet Rita Dove studied English at Miami University and won a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study literature in Germany. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her verse-novel Thomas and Beulah, she became in 1993 the youngest ever American Poet Laureate and the first black American to be elected to this post. Currently, Dove, who has been awarded twenty‑four honorary doctorates, is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Dove is a sensual, lyrical poet, and her poems often explore female black experience and social history. Her intimate style is said to be capable of dissolving the barriers between the present and the past. Featuring famous black American women, such as Rosa Parks and Billie Holiday, as well as more anonymous, every‑day characters, her poems explore what Dove calls the ‘underside of history’.

Rita Dove is the editor of The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth‑Century Poetry.