Rita Dove

Rita Dove is a Poet and Professor of English. She currently teaches at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Professor Dove received a B.A. from Miami University of Ohio and a M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. In 1987, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. She also served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006.

Books authored

Sonata Mulattica (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009, Poetry)

American Smooth (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004, Poetry)

On the Bus with Rosa Parks (New York: Norton, 1999, Poetry)

Mother Love (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995, Poetry)

Selected Poems (Pantheon/Vintage, 1993, Poetry)

Through the Ivory Gate (Pantheon Books, 1992, Novel)

Grace Notes (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989, Poetry)

Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1986, Poetry)

Museum (Carnegie Mellon, 1983, Poetry)

The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie Mellon Press, 1980, Poetry)

Sample Poem

The sample poem is from her collecton, "Thomas And Bueulah", published by Carnegie-Mellon University Press.

Definition in the Face of Unnamed Fury

That dragonfly, bloated, pinned
to the wall, its gossamer wings in tatters
(yellow silk, actually, faded in rivulets) -
what is it? A pendulum
with time on its hands, a frozen
teardrop, a winter melon
with a white, sweet flesh?

Go on - ask the canary.
Ask that sun-bleached delicacy
in its house of sticks
and it will answer Pelican's bill.
What else did you expect?

"How long has it been..?"
Too long. Each note slips
into querulous rebuke, fingerpads
scored with pain, shallow ditches
to rut in like a runaway slave
with a barking heart. Days afterwards
blisters to hide from the children.
Hanging by a thread. Some day,
he threatens, I'll just
let go.