Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

I'm KCRW, Santa Monica.

This is Bookworm, and I'm Michael Silverblatt.

We're continuing our special series,

Escaping the Cage, Identity, Multiculturalism, and Writing.

Today's subject is African-American writers and identity.

My guest is poet Rita Dove.

I'll also be speaking with Edward P. Jones and Alice Walker.

This is poet, spoken word artist, and activist Jane Cortez.

I really became political, very political, and learned a lot about history and politics in the

civil rights movement.

I went to Mississippi in the 1960s, in 1963.

I worked with the student nonviolent coordinating committee in the Voter Registration Projects.

And my task was to find out what was going on in Mississippi and come back to Los Angeles and sort of help organize a friends of SNCC group,

which is what I did.

And so I became very politicized at that time.

Therefore, merging my poetry with the political was just fine.

It all worked for me.

...