Rita Dove

{{Infobox writer

| name = Rita Dove

| image = Rita Dove by Gage Skidmore.jpg

| caption = Dove in December 2017

| birth_name = Rita Frances Dove

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|mf=y|1952|8|28}}

| birth_place = Akron, Ohio, U.S.

| occupation = {{flatlist|

Poet
author
university professor}}

| education = Miami University (BA)
University of Iowa (MFA)

| spouse = {{marriage|Fred Viebahn|1979}}

| children = 1

| notableworks = Thomas and Beulah
The Darker Face of the Earth
Sonata Mulattica
Playlist for the Apocalypse

| awards = Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1987)
United States Poet Laureate (1993–95)
Poet Laureate of Virginia (2004–06)
1996 National Humanities Medal
2011 National Medal of Arts
2019 Wallace Stevens Award
2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal
2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize 2022 Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry
2023 National Book Awards lifetime achievement medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

}}

Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952) is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000.{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1850|title=Rita Dove|date= March 14, 2018|website=Poetry Foundation|access-date= March 15, 2018}} Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.{{cite web|url=https://creativewriting.virginia.edu/people/rita-dove|title = Rita Dove | Creative Writing Program |website=University of Virginia |access-date=20 March 2025}}

Early life

Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, to Ray Dove, one of the first African-American chemists to work in the U.S. tire industry (as a research chemist at Goodyear), and Elvira Hord, who achieved honors in high school and would share her passion for reading with her daughter.{{cite web | author=Rita Dove | title=Comprehensive Biography of Rita Dove | url=http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/compbio.html | publisher=University of Virginia | year=2008 | access-date=January 1, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205185248/http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/compbio.html |archive-date=5 February 2009}}{{cite web|title= Rita Dove |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/#interview |access-date=20 March 2025}} In 1970, Dove graduated from Buchtel High School as a Presidential Scholar. Later, Dove graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Miami University in 1973. From 1974 to 1975 she held a Fulbright Scholarship from University of Tübingen, Germany. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1977.

Career

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage = 210px

| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?426125-1/former-us-poet-laureate-rita-dove C-SPAN Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove], 15:43, C-SPAN{{cite web | title =Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove | publisher =C-SPAN | date = March 21, 2017| url =https://www.c-span.org/video/?426125-1/former-us-poet-laureate-rita-dove | access-date =May 26, 2017 }} }}

Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989. She received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In May 1993 she was named United States Poet Laureate{{cite web | title=Rita Dove, U.S. Poet Laureate: A Resource Guide | website=Research Guides at Library of Congress | date=2020-07-14 | url=https://guides.loc.gov/poet-laureate-rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-20}} by the Librarian of Congress, an office she held until 1995. At the age of 40, Dove was the youngest person in the position and the first African American since the title was changed to Poet Laureate (Robert Hayden had served as the first non-white Consultant in Poetry from 1976 to 1978, and Gwendolyn Brooks had been the last Consultant in Poetry in 1985–86). Early in her tenure as poet laureate, Dove was featured by Bill Moyers in a one-hour interview on his PBS prime-time program Bill Moyers Journal.{{cite web|url=http://billmoyers.com/content/poet-laureate-rita-dove/|title=Poet Laureate Rita Dove |website=BillMoyers.com|access-date=20 March 2025}} Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020 and is now the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

Dove also served as a Special Bicentennial Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1999/2000, along with Louise Glück and W. S. Merwin. In 2004, then-governor Mark Warner of Virginia appointed her to a two-year position as Poet Laureate of Virginia.{{cite web|url=https://guides.loc.gov/united-states-state-poets-laureate/south-dakota-wyoming#s-lib-ctab-28174980-5|title=Virginia - State Poet Laureate (State Poets Laureate of the United States, Main Reading Room, Library of Congress)|website=www.loc.gov|access-date=20 March 2025}} In her public posts, Dove concentrated on spreading the word about poetry and increasing public awareness of the benefits of literature. As United States Poet Laureate, for example, she brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists.

Dove was on the board of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) (now "Association of Writers and Writing Programs") from 1985 to 1988, leading the organization as its president from 1986 to 1987. From 1994 to 2000, she was a senator (member of the governing board) of the national academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. From 2006 to 2012 she served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Since 1991, she has been on the jury of the annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards—from 1991 to 1996 together with Ashley Montagu and Henry Louis Gates; from 1997 to 2023 with Gates, Joyce Carol Oates, Simon Schama, Stephen Jay Gould (until his death in 2002) and Steven Pinker (who replaced Gould in 2002), and since 2023 with Pinker, Peter Ho Davies, Tiya Miles and Natasha Tretheway.{{cite web|url=http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/about/the-jury/|title=The Jury |website=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards |access-date= March 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181115234138/http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/about/the-jury/ |archive-date=15 November 2018}}{{cite web |url=https://www.anisfield-wolf.org/about/#the-jury |title=About |website=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404032339/https://www.anisfield-wolf.org/about/#the-jury |archive-date=4 April 2023}} Since 2023 she serves as vice president for literature at the American Academy of Arts and Letters.{{cite web | title=Rita Dove Joins Board of the American Academy of Arts and Letters | website=Rita Dove | date=2023-04-11 | url=https://uva.theopenscholar.com/rita-dove/news/rita-dove-joins-board-american-academy-arts-and-letters | access-date=2025-03-20}}

In 2000 and 2001 Dove wrote a weekly column, "Poet's Choice", for The Washington Post.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2002/01/13/today-on-page-12-of-book-world/ce2ed888-55aa-48ce-a1e0-a5f8c34bdc5d/ |title=Today on page 12 of Book World ... |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=12 January 2002 |accessdate=2022-06-11}} In the spring of 2018, Dove was named poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine.{{cite web |author=Fitzgerald, Brendan |date=May 25, 2018 |url=https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/nyt-magazine-rita-dove-poetry-editor.php/ |title=NYT Magazine{{'s}} Rita Dove on What Poetry Might Grant Unsuspecting News Readers |work=Columbia Journalism Review |access-date=20 March 2025}} After writing nearly fifty columns in which she championed new American poetry, she resigned from the position in August 2019.

Dove's work cannot be confined to a specific era or school in contemporary literature; her wide-ranging topics and the precise poetic language with which she captures complex emotions defy easy categorization. Her most famous work to date is Thomas and Beulah, published by Carnegie-Mellon University Press in 1986, a collection of poems loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. Dove has published eleven volumes of poetry, a book of short stories (Fifth Sunday, 1985), a collection of essays (The Poet's World, 1995), and a novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992). Her Collected Poems 1974–2004 was released by W. W. Norton in 2016; it carries an excerpt from President Barack Obama's 2011 National Medal of Arts commendation on its back cover.

File:Rita Dove & Amanda Gorman, Washington, D.C., 2019.jpg at the "Furious Flower" gala in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2019]]

In 1994, she published the play The Darker Face of the Earth (revised stage version 1996), which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, in 1996 (first European production: Royal National Theatre, London, 1999). She collaborated with composer John Williams on the song cycle Seven for Luck (first performance: Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, 1998, conducted by the composer). For "America's Millennium", the White House's 1999/2000 New Year's celebration, Dove contributed — in a live reading at the Lincoln Memorial, accompanied by John Williams' music — a poem to Steven Spielberg's documentary The Unfinished Journey.{{YouTube|fCFhBhAbqgQ|Rita Dove reading at "America's Millennium"}} She also provided the texts for Pulitzer Prize winner Tania Leon's musical works "Singin' Sepia" (1996),{{cite web | url=https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/works/work/51748/ | title=Singin' Sepia, Tania León |access-date=20 March 2025}} "Reflections" (2006) {{cite web | title=Reflections | website=Composer & Conductor Tania León | date=2025-03-12 | url=https://www.tanialeon.com/works/reflections-2 | access-date=2025-03-20}} and "The Crossing Choir" (forthcoming),{{cite web | url=https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/l/la-ln/tania-leon/ | title=Tania León |website=Kennedy Center |access-date=20 March 2025}} among other collaborations with multiple composers, most recently on "A Standing Witness" with Richard Danielpour.{{cite web | url=https://dworkincompany.com/site/artist/special-project-a-standing-witness/ | title=Special Project: A Standing Witness, by Richard Danielpour & Rita Dove |publisher=Dworkin & Company}}

Dove's most ambitious collection of poetry to date, Sonata Mulattica,{{cite web|last=May |first=Lori A. |url=http://www.poetsquarterly.com/2013/07/sonata-mulattica-rita-doves-juggling-act.html |title=Poets' Quarterly: Sonata Mulattica: Rita Dove's Juggling Act |publisher=Poetsquarterly.com |date=2013-07-11 |access-date=August 18, 2013}} was published in 2009; it received the 2010 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Over its more than 200 pages, it "has the sweep and vivid characters of a novel", as Mark Doty wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine.{{cite web |first=Mark |last=Doty |url=http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Sonata-Mulattica-by-Rita-Dove-Book-Review |title=The Silenced Violin |website=O, The Oprah Magazine |date=April 2009 |access-date=20 March 2025}}

Dove's 11th collection of poetry, Playlist for the Apocalypse,{{cite book|url=https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393867770|title = Playlist for the Apocalypse |isbn=978-1-324-05043-8}} was published by W. W. Norton in August 2021. The New York Times critic Dwight Garner called it "among her best", "poems that are by turns delicate, witty and audacious."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/books/review-playlist-for-apocalypse-rita-dove.html|title = In 'Playlist for the Apocalypse,' the Weight of American History and of Mortality|newspaper = The New York Times|date = August 9, 2021|last1 = Garner|first1 = Dwight |access-date=21 March 2025}}

Dove edited The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry, published in 2011.{{cite web | title=In Anthology, Rita Dove Connects American Poets' Intergenerational Conversations | website=PBS News | date=2011-12-16 | url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/in-anthology-rita-dove-connects-american-poets-intergenerational-conversations | access-date=2025-03-21}}{{cite web | title=Friday on the NewsHour: Rita Dove | website=PBS News | date=2011-12-16 | url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/friday-on-the-newshour-rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-21}} The collection provoked heated controversy as some critics complained that she valued an inclusive, populist agenda over quality. Poet John Olson commented that "her exclusions are breathtaking". Well-known poets left out include Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Sterling Allen Brown, Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen, Charles Reznikoff and Lorine Niedecker.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/22/poetry-anthology-race-row?INTCMP=SRCH |title=Poetry anthology sparks race row|first=Alison|last=Flood|newspaper=The Guardian|date=December 22, 2011|access-date=21 March 2025}}

As Dove explained in her foreword and in media interviews, she had originally selected works by Plath, Ginsberg and Brown but these as well as some other poets were omitted against her editorial wishes; their contributions had to be removed from print-ready copy at the very last minute because their publisher forbade their inclusion due to a disagreement with Penguin over permission fees. Critic Helen Vendler condemned Dove's choices, asking "why are we being asked to sample so many poets of little or no lasting value?"{{cite news |first=Helen |last=Vendler | title=Are These the Poems to Remember?|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/are-these-poems-remember/| work=The New York Review of Books| date=November 24, 2011 |access-date=21 March 2025}} Dove defended her editorial work vigorously in her response to Vendler in The New York Review of Books,{{cite news |first=Rita |last=Dove | title=Defending An Anthology|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/22/defending-anthology/| work=The New York Review of Books| date=December 22, 2011 |access-date=21 March 2025}} as well as in wide-ranging interviews with The Writer's Chronicle,{{cite news | title=Editing the Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry: An Interview with Rita Dove|url=http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/interviews/2011/writers-chronicle-interview-dec%202011.pdf|work=The Writer's Chronicle|date=December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121008180605/http://people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/interviews/2011/writers-chronicle-interview-dec%202011.pdf |archive-date=8 October 2012}} with poet Jericho Brown on the Best American Poetry website,{{cite web | title=Until the Fulcrum Tips: A Conversation with Rita Dove and Jericho Brown | website=The Best American Poetry | date=2011-12-12 | url=https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2011/12/until-the-fulcrum-tips-a-conversation-with-rita-dove-and-jericho-brown.html | access-date=2025-03-21}} and with Bill Moyers on his public television show Moyers & Company.{{cite news | title=Rita Dove on the Power of Poetry|publisher=Moyers|date=February 17, 2012| url=http://billmoyers.com/segment/rita-dove-on-the-power-of-poetry/ |access-date=21 March 2025}} The Boston Review continued the discussion from different angles with an aggressive attack by scholar Marjorie Perloff{{cite web | title=Poetry on the Brink: Reinventing the Lyric | website=Boston Review | date=2024-09-23 | url=https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/poetry-brink/ | access-date=2025-03-21 |first=Marjorie |last=Perloff}} and a spirited counter-attack by poet and scholar Evie Shockley, who took on both Vendler and Perloff.{{cite web | title=Shifting the (Im)balance | website=Boston Review | date=2024-02-14 | url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/shifting-imbalance/ | access-date=2025-03-21 |first=Evie |last=Shockley}}

Dove published a number of books in foreign translations, among them two into German, two into Chinese, three into Spanish, and one each into Norwegian, Macedonian, Italian, French, Dutch and Hebrew, plus numerous translations in foreign magazines. One of her earliest foreign translations was into French by Paol Keineg and published in the Breton review "Bretagnes" in 1976."Bretagnes", p. 37-39, Morlaix.

The annual "Rita Dove Poetry Award" was established by Salem College Center for Women Writers in 2004. The documentary film Rita Dove: An American Poet by Eduardo Montes-Bradley premiered at the Paramount Theater on January 31, 2014.{{cite web |first=David A. |last=Maurer |url=http://www.dailyprogress.com/entertainment/new-documentary-about-rita-dove-explores-music-family-and-other/article_e07a4604-89e1-11e3-ac70-001a4bcf6878.html |title=New documentary about Rita Dove explores music, family and other forces that shaped a poet |website=The Daily Progress |date=January 31, 2014 |access-date=21 March 2025}}{{cite web |first=Lawrence A. |last=Garretson |url=http://www.c-ville.com/rita-dove-talks-about-a-new-film-on-her-life-and-work/#.UvBkL0Yo6XI |title=Rita Dove talks about a new film on her life and work |website=C-Ville |date=January 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222072028/http://www.c-ville.com/rita-dove-talks-about-a-new-film-on-her-life-and-work/#.UvBkL0Yo6XI |archive-date=22 February 2014}}

In 2019, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth, Dove put the African-American poetic reception of Whitman into perspective at a poetry festival in Bogotá, Colombia, during a round-table session with Robert Pinsky.{{cite av media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yPM2hxekwU |title=Rita Dove on Walt Whitman (Sept. 2019) |date=3 October 2019 |work=Youtube |access-date=21 March 2025}}

Awards and honors

File:Rita Dove's definition of a library, Augusta, ME IMG 2038.JPG at the entrance to the Maine State Library in Augusta, Maine. Dove's definition reads "The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.".]]

Besides her Pulitzer Prize, Dove has received numerous literary and academic honors, among them 29 honorary doctorates – most recently in 2022 from her graduate alma mater, The University of Iowa{{cite web | url=https://stories.uiowa.edu/spring-2022-grads-honorary-degree-rita-dove | title=A master of poetry comes home |first=Jack |last=Rossi |publisher=University of Iowa |access-date=21 March 2025}}, as well as from from Emerson College (2013){{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bajGvgjLHs|title=Emerson College Commencement 2013: Rita Dove receives honorary doctorate at Emerson College |website=YouTube |date=14 May 2013 |access-date=21 March 2025}}, Emory University (2013){{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4MSdIPxRLo |website=YouTube|publisher=Emory University |title=Commencement Keynote 2013 |date=14 May 2013 |access-date=21 March 2025}}), Yale University (2014){{cite web|url=https://news.yale.edu/2014/05/19/yale-awards-12-honorary-degrees-2014-graduation/|title=Yale awards 12 honorary degrees at 2014 graduation|date= May 19, 2014|access-date= 21 March 2025 |website=YaleNews}}, Harvard University (2018){{cite web |author=Mitchell, Stephanie |date=May 24, 2018 |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/05/harvard-awards-seven-honorary-degrees/ |title=Seven Receive Honorary Degrees |website=News.Harvard.edu |access-date=21 March 2025}}, Smith College (2018){{cite web | title=Hold On To Your Dreams With Dignity, Dove Tells Graduates | website=Smith College| date=2019-03-14 | url=https://www.smith.edu/news-events/news/hold-your-dreams-dignity-dove-tells-graduates | access-date=2025-03-21}}, and The University of Michigan (2018).{{cite web |author=Rosenfeld, Benjamin |date=December 16, 2018 |url=https://www.michigandaily.com/section/administration/winter-commencement-includes-messages-about-advocacy-and-identity |title=Winter commencement speakers emphasize adaptability, paying it forward |website=The Michigan Daily |access-date=21 March 2025}} In 2016, she was the commencement speaker at The University of Virginia, which traditionally does not bestow honorary degrees.{{cite magazine|url=https://time.com/4341831/rita-dove-commencement-speech-university-of-virginia/|title=Rita Dove to Grads: 'Instead of Advice, I Will Give You Wishes'|magazine=Time|access-date= 21 March 2025 |date=22 May 2016}} Among the other institutions of higher learning that granted her honorary doctorates are her undergraduate alma mater Miami University, Knox College, Tuskegee University, University of Miami (Florida), Washington University in St. Louis, Case Western Reserve University, The University of Akron, Arizona State University, Boston College, Dartmouth College, Spelman College, The University of Pennsylvania, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, Northeastern University, Columbia University, SUNY Brockport, Washington & Lee University, Howard University, the Pratt Institute, Skidmore College and Duke University.{{cite web | title=Rita Dove | website=Department of English | date=2023-09-29 | url=https://english.as.virginia.edu/people/rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-21}}

Dove received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1994,{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/ |access-date=21 March 2025}}{{cite web |date=2019 |title=2019 Summit Highlights Photo |url= https://achievement.org/summit/2019/|quote= Rita Dove, former United States Poet Laureate, presenting the Golden Plate Award to Nadia Murad, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, during the Banquet of the Golden Plate Award gala at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. |access-date=21 March 2025}} the National Humanities Medal / Charles Frankel Prize from President Bill Clinton in 1996,{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKI-EjQkJvc|title=The 1996 National Medals of Arts and Humanities|website=YouTube |access-date=21 March 2025}} the 3rd Annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities in 1997,{{cite web|url=http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/rita-dove|title=Rita Dove|website=Heinz Awards|access-date= 21 March 2025}} and more recently, the 2006 Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service in Literature,{{cite web | last=Bromley | first=Anne E. | title=Poet Rita Dove, University Of Virginia English Professor, Wins 2006 Common Wealth Award for Literature | website=UVA Today | date=2006-03-02 | url=https://news.virginia.edu/content/poet-rita-dove-university-virginia-english-professor-wins-2006-common-wealth-award | access-date=2025-03-21}} the 2007 Chubb Fellowship at Yale University,{{cite web | title=Rita Dove | website=The Chubb Fellowship | date=2007-01-01 | url=https://chubbfellowship.yale.edu/fellow/rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-21}} the 2008 Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award,{{cite web | last=Arrington | first=Rebecca P. | title=U.Va.'s Rita Dove to Receive Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award Oct. 18 | website=UVA Today | date=2008-10-16 | url=https://news.virginia.edu/content/uvas-rita-dove-receive-library-virginia-lifetime-achievement-award-oct-18 | access-date=2025-03-21}} the 2009 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal,{{cite web|url=http://www.fulbright.org/?page=2009_Medal&hhSearchTerms=rita+and+dove|title=Fulbright.org|website=Fulbright.org|access-date= March 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131216210507/http://www.fulbright.org/?page=2009_Medal&hhSearchTerms=rita+and+dove |archive-date=16 December 2013}} the 2009 Premio Capri{{cite web|url=http://premiocapri.com/en/awardwinners.php|title=Award Winners|publisher=Premio Capri – Capri Awards|website=premiocapri.com|access-date= 21 March 2025}} and the 2011 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama.{{cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/10/monday-president-obama-award-2011-national-medal-arts-and-national-human|title=MONDAY: President Obama to Award 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal|date= February 10, 2012|publisher=The White House|access-date= 21 March 2025}}{{cite web |url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/02/national-medals-of-arts-humanities-announced.html |title=National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medals announced |work=Los Angeles Times |date=February 10, 2012 |first= Carolyn |last=Kellogg |access-date=21 March 2025}}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzYC3eYjqG8|title=2011 National Medals of Arts and Humanities Ceremony|publisher=The Obama White House |date=February 13, 2012 |website=YouTube |access-date=21 March 2025}} In 2014, she was honored with the Carole Weinstein Prize in poetry{{cite web|url=http://www.weinsteinpoetryprize.org/|title=Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize|website=weinsteinpoetryprize.org|access-date= 21 March 2025}} and in 2015, as the first American, with the Poetry and People Prize in Guangdong, China. In 2016, she received the Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement from Oregon State University.{{cite web | title=2016 Stone Award Winner | website=College of Liberal Arts | date=2015-03-26 | url=https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/school-writing-literature-and-film/events/stone-award/2016-stone-award-winner-rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-21}} Collected Poems 1974–2004, released in 2016, was a finalist for the National Book Award,{{cite web|url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2016-national-book-awards-colson-whitehead-kate-dicamillo-among-finalists/2016/10/05/071a2204-8b04-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html |title= 2016 National Book Awards: Colson Whitehead, Kate DiCamillo among finalists |first= Nora |last= Krug |work= The Washington Post |date= October 6, 2016 |access-date= December 11, 2023 |archive-date= December 11, 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231211145341/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2016-national-book-awards-colson-whitehead-kate-dicamillo-among-finalists/2016/10/05/071a2204-8b04-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html |url-status=live}} the winner of the NAACP Image Award in poetry and winner of the 2017 Library of Virginia Poetry Award.{{cite web |author=Treadway, Sandra Gioia |url=http://www.lva.virginia.gov/news/press/20thAnnualLVALiteraryAwardWinnersAnnounced.pdf |title=Dove, Shetterly, Brown, and Baldacci Receive Literary Awards: 2017 recipients honored at the Library of Virginia |publisher=Library of Virginia |access-date=21 March 2025}} Also in 2017, she received the Callaloo Lifetime Achievement Award,{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0sCUEynBYs|title=Rita Dove receives the Callaloo Lifetime Achievement Award|website=YouTube|date= October 16, 2017|access-date=21 March 2025}} followed in 2018 by The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement{{cite web | title=The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement | website=The Kenyon Review | url=https://kenyonreview.org/events/kenyon-review-award-for-literary-achievement/ | access-date=2025-03-21}} and in 2019 by the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets,{{cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2019/09/rita-dove-honored-with-2019-wallace-stevens-award|title = Rita Dove Honored with 2019 Wallace Stevens Award by Harriet Staff|publisher=Poetry Foundation|date = 25 May 2021 |access-date=21 March 2025}} the North Star Award (the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for lifetime achievement),{{cite web|url=https://www.hurstonwright.org/presidents-choice-awards/|title=Merit Awards|access-date=November 18, 2019|archive-date=November 6, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106232525/https://www.hurstonwright.org/presidents-choice-awards/|url-status=dead |website=Hurston/Wright Foundation}} the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University,{{cite web|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/10/23/2019-du-bois-ceremony/|title = Queen Latifah, Rita Dove, and Robert Smith Receive Annual W. E. B. Du Bois Medal |website=The Harvard Crimson |first=Amanda Y. |last=Su |date=23 October 2019 |access-date=21 March 2025}} and the Langston Hughes Medal from City College of New York.{{cite web|url=https://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2019/06/20/pulitzer-prize-poet-rita-dove-wins-ccnys-langston-hughes-medal/|title=Pulitzer Prize poet Rita Dove wins CCNY's Langston Hughes Medal|publisher=The City University of New York|date=June 20, 2019 |access-date=21 March 2025}}

Since 2015, Rita Dove's poem Cozy Apologia has been a part of the WJEC Edquas GCSE English Literature specification in England and Wales, featuring in its poetry anthology.{{cite web |url=https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fresource.download.wjec.co.uk%2Fvtc%2F2015-16%2F15-16_48%2Fppt%2FCozy%2520Apologia.pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK |title=Cozy Apologia |website=Eduqas |access-date=21 March 2025}}

In 2021, Dove received the gold medal in poetry {{cite web|url=https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2021-special-awards//|title = Yehudi Wyner, Rita Dove, and Phong Bui Receive Highest Honors |website=American Academy of Arts and Letters |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210329131809/https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2021-special-awards// |archive-date=29 March 2021}} from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the academy's highest honor, as the 16th poet (and only the 3rd female and 1st African-American) in the medals' 110-year history. The other fifteen poets who have received the medal since 1911 were James Whitcomb Riley, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Conrad Aiken, William Carlos Williams, W. H. Auden, John Crowe Ransom, Archibald MacLeish, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, John Ashbery, W. S. Merwin, Mark Strand and Louise Glück.

In 2022, an official portrait of Dove by photographer Sanjay Suchak, commissioned by the University of Virginia, was unveiled and is now prominently displayed in the front room of the university's historic Pavilion VII (Colonnade Club) on the West Lawn.{{cite web | url=https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-adds-dove-portrait-and-bus-stop-marker-honor-recent-history | title=UVA Adds Dove Portrait and Bus Stop Marker to Honor Recent History |first=Anne E. |last=Bromley|website=UVA Today| date=April 15, 2022 |access-date=21 March 2025}} Also in 2022, she won the Library of Virginia Poetry Award for Playlist for the Apocalypse{{cite web | title=Dove, Eastman, Johnson top winners at Library of Virginia Literary Awards | website=Richmond Times-Dispatch | date=2025-03-07 | url=https://richmond.com/entertainment/books/rita-dove-carolyn-eastman-top-winners-at-library-of-virginia-literary-awards/article_39a1af13-6355-5ebf-88f3-641c0ab8e3a4.html | access-date=2025-03-21}} and received two more lifetime achievement recognitions: a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation {{cite web | url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/press/158595/poetry-foundation-makes-history-honoring-2022-pegasus-awardees | title=Poetry Foundation Makes History Honoring 2022 Pegasus Awardees |publisher=Poetry Foundation| date=September 8, 2022 |access-date=21 March 2025}} and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress.{{cite web | url=https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/library-of-congress-awards-bobbitt-poetry-prizes-to-rita-dove-and-heid-e.-erdrich/s/093fa122-227f-4fba-b58e-140dcb9c8a6d?loclr=twloc| title=Library of Congress Awards Bobbitt Poetry Prizes to Rita Dove and Heid E. Erdrich |publisher=Library of Congress|date= November 15, 2022 |access-date=21 March 2025}}

On Nov. 15, 2023, during the 74th National Book Awards ceremony in New York, Dove received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters as only the fourth poet in this lifetime achievement category, after Gwendolyn Brooks in 1994, Adrienne Rich in 2006 and John Ashbery in 2011. {{cite web|url= https://www.nationalbook.org/national-book-foundation-to-present-lifetime-achievement-award-to-rita-dove/ |title= National Book Foundation to Present Lifetime Achievement Award to Rita Dove |date=September 2023 |work= National Book Awards |access-date= 21 March 2025 |archive-date= November 20, 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231120055522/https://www.nationalbook.org/national-book-foundation-to-present-lifetime-achievement-award-to-rita-dove/ |url-status=live}} This was followed by an Academy of American Poets Leadership Award {{cite web | title=Academy of American Poets Presented Leadership Awards to Poetry Advocates, Launching its Ninetieth Anniversary | website=Poets.org | date=2024-01-25 | url=https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-presented-leadership-awards-poetry-advocates-launching-its-ninetieth | access-date=2025-03-21}} and the Thomas Robinson Prize for Southern Literature from Mercer University {{cite web | title=Thomas Robinson Prize | website=Mercer University | url=https://kingcenter.mercer.edu/thomas-robinson-prize/ | access-date=2025-03-21}} in 2024.

Dove is a member of the American Philosophical Society,{{cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Rita+Dove&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=21 March 2025|website=search.amphilsoc.org}} the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where she currently serves as vice president for literature during the 2023 to 2026 board term, the Fellowship of Southern Writers and PEN American Center. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1991,{{cite web | title=Ohio Women's Hall of Fame | website=Ohio History Connection | date=2025-02-08 | url=https://www.ohiohistory.org/research/archives-library/state-archives/ohio-womens-hall-of-fame/#ritadove | access-date=2025-03-21}} and in 2018 she was named one of the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History.{{cite web|url=https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/changemakers/items/show/289|title=Rita Dove|website=Virginia Changemakers|access-date= 21 March 2025}}

Personal life

Dove married Fred Viebahn,{{cite web | url=https://uva.theopenscholar.com/fred-viebahn/bio | title=Fred Viebahn |website=The Open Scholar}} a German-born writer, in 1979; they first met in the summer of 1976 when she was a graduate student in the Iowa Writers Workshop and he spent a semester as a Fulbright fellow in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. They lived in Oberlin, Ohio, from 1977 to 1979 while Viebahn taught in the Oberlin College German department, and spent extended periods of time in Germany, Ireland and Israel, before moving to Arizona in 1981.{{cite web | url=https://piper.asu.edu/writers/rita-dove | title=Rita Dove |website=Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806193600/https://piper.asu.edu/writers/rita-dove |archive-date=6 August 2020}} Their daughter, Aviva Dove-Viebahn,{{cite web | url=https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/1991962 | title=Aviva Dove-Viebahn |website=ASU Search |access-date=21 March 2025}} was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1983. The couple are avid ballroom dancers,{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?feature=edit_ok&list=PLUEcjO_8eWedcwGdayniEcPs86g45friv |title=Rita and Fred dancing |website=YouTube |access-date=21 March 2025}} and have participated in a number of showcase performances. Since 1989 Dove and her husband have been living in Charlottesville, Virginia.{{cite web | title=Comprehensive Biography | website=Rita Dove |publisher=University of Virginia | url=https://uva.theopenscholar.com/rita-dove/comprehensive-biography | access-date=2025-03-21}}

Bibliography

= Poetry =

== Collections ==

{{cite book |title=The yellow house on the corner |location=Pittsburgh |publisher=Carnegie-Mellon University Press |date=1980 |isbn=0915604396}}
{{cite book |title=Museum |publisher=Carnegie Mellon |date=1983}}
{{cite book |title=Thomas and Beulah |publisher=Carnegie Mellon Press |date=1986 |isbn=978-0-88748-021-8}}
{{cite book |title=Grace Notes |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton, 1989 |isbn=978-0-393-02719-8}}
{{cite book |title=Selected Poems |publisher=Pantheon/Vintage |date=1993 |isbn=978-0-679-75080-2}}
{{cite book |title=Mother Love |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |date=1995|isbn=978-0-393-31444-1}}
{{cite book |title=On the Bus with Rosa Parks |location=New York |publisher=Norton |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-393-04722-6}}
{{cite book |title=American Smooth |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |date=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-05987-8}}
{{cite book |title=Sonata Mulattica |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-393-07008-8}}
{{cite book |title=Collected Poems 1974-2004 |location=New York, London |publisher=W. W. Norton |date=2016 |isbn=978-0-393-28594-9}}
{{cite book |title=Playlist for the Apocalypse |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |date=2021 |isbn=978-0-393-86777-0}}

== Anthologies (edited) ==

{{cite book |title=The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-14-310643-2}}
{{cite book |title=The Best American Poetry 2000 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-7432-0033-2}}

=Novels=

{{cite book |title=Through the Ivory Gate |publisher=Pantheon Books |date=1992 |isbn=978-0-679-41604-3}}

= Short fiction =

{{cite book |title=Fifth Sunday |publisher=University of Kentucky, Callaloo Fiction Series |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-912759-06-7}}

=Drama=

The Darker Face of the Earth: A Verse Play in Fourteen Scenes (Story Line Press, 1994; revised edition: 1996)

=Essays=

{{cite book |title=The Poet's World |location=Washington, DC |publisher=The Library of Congress |date=1995 |isbn=9780844408743}}

=Scholarly books on Dove's work=

{{cite book |author=Steffen, Therese |title=Crossing Color: Transcultural Space and Place in Rita Dove's Poetry, Fiction, and Drama |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2001 |isbn=9780195134407}}
{{cite book |editor=Ingersoll, Earl G. |title=Conversations with Rita Dove |location=Jackson |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |date=2003 |isbn=9781578065493}}
{{cite book |author=Pereira, Malin |title=Rita Dove's Cosmopolitanism |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |date=2003 |isbn=9780252028373}}
{{cite book |author= Righelato, Pat |title=Understanding Rita Dove |location=Columbia |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |date=2006 |isbn=9781570036378}}
{{cite book |author=Roy, Lekha |title=Towards Post-Blackness: A Critical Study of Rita Dove's Poetry |location=New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien |publisher=Peter Lang |date=2023 |isbn=9781636671796}}

=Various other secondary literature (incomplete)=

Erickson, Peter. "Rita Dove's Shakespeares." In Marianne Novy (ed.), Transforming Shakespeare. New York: St. Martin's, 1999.
Harrington, Walt, "The Shape of Her Dreaming: Rita Dove Writes a Poem." In Intimate Journalism. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997
Keller, Lynn. "Sequences Testifying for 'Nobodies': Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah and Brenda Marie Osbey's Desperate Circumstance, Dangerous Woman." In Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
McDowell, Robert. "The Assembling Vision of Rita Dove." In James McCorkle (ed.), Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry. Detroit: Wayne State University, 1990.
Meitner, Erika. "On Rita Dove." In Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker (eds), Women Poets on Mentorship. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008
Shoptaw, John. "Segregated Lives: Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah." In Henry Louis Gates, Jr (ed.), Reading Black, Reading Feminist. London: Penguin, 1990
Galgano, Andrea. "Rita Dove. La grazia esatta" in Frontiera di Pagine II, pp. 723–734. Roma: Aracne, 2017
Apolloni, Ag. Poetry is a kind of dance (Interview with Rita Dove). Symbol, No 9/2017. Link: [https://www.eurozine.com/poetry-is-a-kind-of-dance/ Poetry is a kind of dance]
Young, Kevin. "The Art of Poetry. No. 113." Interview with Rita Dove. In The Paris Review No 243 (Spring 2023). pp. 114-148.

== Very incomplete list of individual poems ==

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'
width=25%\|Title !\|Year !\|First published !\|Reprinted/collected
data-sort-value="Bridgetower"\|The Bridgetower \|2008 \|{{cite journal \|author=Dove, Rita \|date=November 24, 2008 \|title=The Bridgetower \|journal=The New Yorker \|volume=84 \|issue=38 \|pages=90–91}} \|
Last words \|2021 \|{{cite journal \|author=Dove, Rita \|date=January 25, 2021 \|title=Last words \|journal=The New Yorker \|volume=96 \|issue=45 \|pages=38 \|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/last-words }} \|
Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut Grove \|2022 \|{{cite journal \|author=Dove, Rita \|date=August 29, 2022 \|title=Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut Grove \|journal=The New Yorker \|volume=98 \|issue=26 \|pages=24–25 \|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/hattie-mcdaniel-arrives-at-the-coconut-grove }} \|

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'

width=25%|Title

!|Year

!|First published

!|Reprinted/collected

data-sort-value="Bridgetower"|The Bridgetower

|2008

|{{cite journal |author=Dove, Rita |date=November 24, 2008 |title=The Bridgetower |journal=The New Yorker |volume=84 |issue=38 |pages=90–91}}

Last words

|2021

|{{cite journal |author=Dove, Rita |date=January 25, 2021 |title=Last words |journal=The New Yorker |volume=96 |issue=45 |pages=38 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/last-words }}

Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut Grove

|2022

|{{cite journal |author=Dove, Rita |date=August 29, 2022 |title=Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut Grove |journal=The New Yorker |volume=98 |issue=26 |pages=24–25 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/hattie-mcdaniel-arrives-at-the-coconut-grove }}

References

External links

{{C-SPAN|33266}}
[http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rfd4b/home.html The Rita Dove Homepage at University of Virginia], with resource listing of video, articles etc. Retrieved November 2, 2010
[http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/rita_dove_how_does_a_shadow_sh/ Audio: Rita Dove at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2010: "How Does a Shadow Shine?"] Retrieved November 2, 2010
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1850 Poems by Rita Dove and biography] at PoetryFoundation.org. Retrieved November 2, 2010
[http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/185 Interview: Rita Dove at the Academy of American Poets]. Poems, audio, interviews. Retrieved November 2, 2010
Rita Dove, [http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/11/24/081124po_poem_dove "The Bridgetower" (poem)], The New Yorker, November 24, 2008. Retrieved November 2, 2010
[http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/dove/dove.htm Essays, poems, interview about Dove at Modern American Poetry], University of Illinois. Retrieved November 2, 2010
[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Rita-Dove-on-the-Future-of-Literature.html "Rita Dove on the Future of Literature"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131107170323/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Rita-Dove-on-the-Future-of-Literature.html |date=November 7, 2013 }}, The Smithsonian, August 2010
[http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/callaloo/v031/31.3.viebahn.html "Rita Dove: A Selective Bibliography"], Project Muse. Retrieved December 1, 2015
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080906161025/http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/%7ecybers/dove2.html Women of Color, Women of Words biography], Rutgers University. Retrieved April 4, 2018
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3B1A8L-5ws Extended Interview: Rita Dove]. Interviewed by Jeffrey Brown on PBS Newshour, December 2011, on the topic of 20th-century American poetry, as collected in [https://books.google.com/books?id=OjXsmgEACAAJ&q=penguin+anthology+of+20th+century+american+poetry The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry]. Retrieved February 11, 2017
{{cite web | title=Rita Dove, U.S. Poet Laureate: A Resource Guide | website=Research Guides at Library of Congress | date=2020-07-14 | url=https://guides.loc.gov/poet-laureate-rita-dove | access-date=2025-03-20}}