What Is The You Re-Going-Out-Into The World By Rita Dove

In her speech, poet, Rita Dove, delivers a speech to graduating college students on advice they should think about for their next step in life. She commentates on things like having curiosity, giving effort, being brave, and other important information one would need to take on the real world.

A choice Dove makes to strengthen her speech is to bring up some of her personal experiences and conversations she’s had. A great example of this is when she brings up a talk she had with her father. Dove’s father had the “You’re-going-out-into-the-world” talk with her and a simple, but effective message. He said “Always be 150% prepared! At 150% you’ll be ready for anything – even if you’re not chosen for a job or position although you’re the better qualified candidate”. Dove follows up this quote by stating “My father knew how it felt to be passed over. What he was trying to tell me was: “The last person to hold you accountable is yourself”. By bringing up this conversation, Dove allowed her audience to feel more connected to her because she brought up her experience of what many of them were probably going through themselves. She does an effective job with this part of the speech because she brings up something her father said, but also provides her own interpretation of what he said, which allows the audience to interpret the message in two different ways.

An instance where she does this is when she says “I wish you hunger,” followed by “Of course, I don’t mean the physiological want, but a continued intellectual appetite, a hunger to know more, do more, feel more”. She could’ve just said “I want you to go out and do stuff in the world,” but she decided to say it like this because it sounds more appealing and allows the listeners to understand her point