Rita Dove
Rita Dove, born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio, earned degrees from Miami University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her record of achievement is unprecedented. When in February 2011 she received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, she became the first person to have received all three of the country’s highest arts distinctions—the others being the Humanities Medal and a term of service as Poet Laureate (2003–5). She has been a frequent guest of Bill Moyers’ PBS series. In 1987, she received the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poems, Thomas and Beulah, which is loosely based on her maternal grandparents’ lives. She also has nine other volumes of poetry: Collected Poems 1974–2004 (2016), Sonata Mulattica (2009), American Smooth (2004), On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999), Mother Love (1995), Selected Poems (1993), Grace Notes (1989), Museum (1983), and The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). She has published a collection of essays, The Poet’s World (1995); a drama, The Darker Face of the Earth: A Verse Play in Fourteen Scenes (1994); a novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992); and a collection of short stories, Fifth Sunday (1985). She has edited two volumes, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2011) and The Best American Poetry 2000 (2000). From 2004 to 2006, Dove served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia. She holds twenty-five honorary doctorates, is a classically trained musician (viola de gamba), and has done numerous musical collaborations, including Seven for Luck, seven poems by Rita Dove with music by John Williams, and Umoja: Each One of Us Counts, music by Alvin Singleton, commissioned by the Atlanta Olympic Summer Games. Since 1989, she has taught at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English.
Georgia Review Archive for Rita Dove
Robert Schumann, or: Musical Genius Begins with Affliction
The Hill Has Something to Say
Lucille, Post-Operative Years
The Great Piece of Turf & Horse and Tree
Meditation: On the Bus with Rosa Parks (Sit Back, Relax; “The situation is intolerable”; Freedom Ride; Climbing In; Claudette Colvin Goes to Work; The Enactment; Rosa; QE2. Transatlantic Crossing. Third Day; In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, DC; & The Pond, Porch-View: Six P.M., Early Spring)
Describe Yourself in Three Words or Less
follow the morning star
Tell yourself it’s only a sliver of sun
burning into your chest, a cap of gold
or radiant halo justly worn by
the righteous… read more
In 1516, the Most Serene Republic of Venice confined its Jews to the site of a former foundry. The Venetian word for foundry was geto.
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