WATCH: Rita Dove reads her poem ‘Blues, Straight’

Poet Rita Dove has spent years learning to live with multiple sclerosis. Dove told the PBS NewsHour that an early poem, “Blues, Straight,” is about her “trying to figure out how to get through a day, how to manage an ongoing ailment that one has no control over.”

“I ache. I ache. It’s not so odd, no rarity to find a body going through the daily give and take, the clarity of blues,” the poem starts.

Dove, one of the nation's best known poets, has a new volume of poetry, called "Playlist For the Apocalypse,” that explores both her personal health and our collective well-being.

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