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Culture & Religion

An Anatomically Challenged Easter Bunny

Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate of the United States, told Big Think that the first poem she ever wrote, at the age of 10 or 11, was about Easter: “In school we were supposed to write or paint or do something artistic for Easter, so I wrote this poem called ‘The Rabbit With the Droopy Ear’ and I remember it because when I began writing the poem I had no idea how it was going to end. I just had this idea of a rabbit, the Easter Bunny who had one ear that, you know, drooped down and he was distressed…
So I kept writing and it rhymed and all that, and it was actually the rhyme itself that helped me solve the problem of the rabbit with the droopy ear, so the end of the poem it goes: ‘Hip-hip hooray. Let’s toast him a cup. For now both ears are hanging up.’ He hangs himself from a tree and his ears hang straight and everybody is cheering and I was just… I don’t know. It was very exciting to find that ending.'” Watch her revealing interview.


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