Rita Dove (1952 - )

« Back to the List of Authors

"Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation."*

From 1993 to 1995, Dove served as the United States' Poet Laureate, a role that made her a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. She was both the first African American and the youngest person (at 41) to have held the position.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Dove graduated from Miami University in Ohio in 1973. She then attended the University of TŸbingen in Germany. In 1977, she received an M.F.A. degree at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She taught at Arizona State University before becoming a professor of English at the University of Virginia in 1989.

Her poetry volumes include Museum (1983), Grace Notes (1989), Mother Love (1995), On the Bus With Rosa Parks (1999), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas and Beulah (1986), which traces the lives of two characters modeled after her own grandparents. Dove is also the author of the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992).

* "š" in The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1989)