Rita Dove - American Smooth

Rita Dove is an African-American poet and author born in Akron, Ohio. Dove served as Poet Laureate from 1993 - 1995; a distinguishable honor that is not awarded to everyone. American Smooth by Rita Dove was published in 2004. It comes from a book of the same title.

American Smooth

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn’t notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down. 

I think it's important to note that Rita and her husband are ballroom dancers. This gives you a better idea of why she wrote this piece and what it may mean to her. Ballroom dances in general are usually rigid and a bit constricting. They can also be romantic and sensual. When I heard Rita read this poem out loud in a video, I heard the rise and fall in her tone. She does this purposely to reflect the rise and fall in the dance that she talks about in line 5. The way that she reads it matches the words perfectly. 

Dove does a great job of expressing what it's like to take on a foxtrot or waltz. She mentions the restraint, control, and forceful smile that you have to put on even though you're so focused on the steps. They can't even look at each other face to face in this dance. Their eyes are gazing past each others ears. Her emphasis on "always smiling, smiling" sounds like she is trying to emphasize the need she feels to put on a facade and act like things are easy and perfect. It hides everything that is actually going on in her mind.  It's easy to get so caught up in all of this thinking that you lose sight of everything else and really feeling the dance. I think that this could be a representation of relationships. When you're trying to do everything right, and be the perfect partner, you may forget to just enjoy the person. In the 10th line from the bottom, Rita mentions how she didn't even notice her partner after a while and how still he'd become. Eventually they achieved flight and were on a "high", until they got brought down to reality. This could also be symbolic in relationships.

I also think it's important to know that Dove's husband is a caucasian German man. Being a bi-racial couple is still considered strange to some people, and I'm sure that they have experienced some opposition. From this perspective, the last few lines could be about them being in love and enjoying each other, but somehow people try to bring them down and get in the way.