Shaped Intimacy
Today we are admiring poet Rita Dove’s description of literature as ‘shaped intimacy’ in an interview in the current Smithsonian magazine. Answering the big question of the moment — ‘How will blogs, YouTube and other technology affect authors?’ — she responds:
‘The intimacy that literature affords — that feeling that you are really in the head of the characters protrayed — used to be almost the private privilege of plays, novels and poetry. Now there’s another place that has it — be it blogs, Facebook or Twitter — and it gives you second-by-second accounts. That does not diminish the power of literature, because literature is shaped intimacy.’