Rita Dove

Rita Dove, born in 1952, American writer who served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. She was the first African American writer to become poet laureate.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Dove graduated from Miami University in Ohio in 1973 and from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1977. She taught at Arizona State University from 1981 until 1989, when she joined the faculty of the University of Virginia.

Much of Dove's work concentrates on revealing the beauty and significance of everyday events in ordinary lives. In The Yellow House on the Corner (1980) and Museum (1983), she shows how such moments make up individuals' history and add to the experiences that human beings share. Dove won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection of poems, Thomas and Beulah (1986), a series of narrative poems that explore the lives of two characters modeled after Dove's grandparents. The poems are written from the perspective of Thomas and Beulah, who offer their observations on both personal and public issues ranging from marriage to the experiences of African Americans.

Dove's fourth book of poems, Grace Notes (1989), recounts elements of her daily life with humor and irony. Mother Love (1995) explores family life and motherhood within the framework of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999) covers a wide range of human experience. The title sequence includes a poem about American civil-rights activist Rosa Parks. Dove is also the author of the short-story collection Fifth Sunday (1985), the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992), and the essay collection The Poet’s World (1995).