11/9/2023 0 Comments Rita dove![]() In her work, the Black experience is integrated into a larger picture of Western cultures in both the United States and Europe. Billington, Librarian of Congress, appointed her for a second term, crediting her with having “more ideas for elevating poetry in the nation’s consciousness than there is time to carry out in one term.” A writer of both poetry and fiction and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Ms. Dove was named America’s Poet Laureate, the first African-American and, at 40 years of age, the youngest person ever to hold that distinguished post. ![]() “I travel all over the world, but I still call Ohio home.Rita Dove received the 3 rd Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities for her success in breathing new life into the essence of poetry. “I do feel connected to Cleveland, to Akron in particular, but the whole Northeast Ohio area, so anytime I can get back to visit, I do,” she says. So receiving the Cleveland Arts Prize was an especial surprise. For the last 27 years, she has served as a juror for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, returning to Cleveland every September. Rita returns to Ohio several times each year, including attending her high school reunions. She has also received a National Humanities Medal National Medal of Arts NAACP Image Award for Collected Poems editor, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry and she has had productions of her play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kennedy Center, and the Royal National Theater in London. So the two of them are absolutely wedded, and that is one of the reasons why love seeing what kinds of music a story or poem or play can make.” “I’m equally in love with music because I play the cello and I sing everything from opera to jazz. “I love language, I love sounds and the music that language makes,” Rita says. Currently, she is developing a cycle of poems with composer Richard Danielpour for voice and a chamber group that will begin as a series of live performances across the US and then possibly a recording. She is in the early stages of writing a literary memoir of her early life, so Ohio will be featured quite a bit. Her own work, the popular verse novel Thomas and Beulah, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986, was staged as an opera by The Museum for Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2001. She is also an acclaimed lyricist, and has written lyrics for composers ranging from Tania León to John Williams. Her play The Darker Face of the Earth (1996) was produced at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In addition to poetry, Dove has published works of fiction, including the short story collection Fifth Sunday (1990) and the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992). Her book of poems On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. “The poet’s challenge is to articulate what seems unspeakable.” “Poetry – that sublimely human enterprise – challenges us to pay serious and tender attention both to the things of this world and to the journeys of the spirit,” she has said. ![]() Rita’s poems are known for their lyricism and beauty combined with a sense of history and political scope. In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, making her the youngest person – and the first African-America – to receive this highest official honor in American poetry. Rita’s work as poet, playwright and author has had a profound impact on American letters, not only through the scope of her poetry, but also through her work as an advocate. She holds honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from numerous universities throughout the US and two from Chinese universities.Īll these years later, her father and mother, both in their 90s, and her family are exceptionally proud of her numerous accomplishments. “He took it on advisement!”Īfter graduating, she received a Fulbright to study at the University of Tübingen in West Germany, and later earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Shortly after that, when she went home for Thanksgiving, she informed her father, a chemist, that she wanted to be a poet. “I fell in love with the fact that I could work with words and make the stories better and make them all sing!” she enthuses. She realized she could actually take courses in creative writing. “So that’s when a little door opened.”īut the revelatory moment when she knew she wanted to write poetry, short stories, and plays came, she says, when she got to Miami University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude) in 1973. “I saw a real, live author and that just stunned me, that there were people writing books,” she recalls. Today, she recalls two key turning points in her career: One of her high school teachers took a group of students to a book signing for the poet John Ciardi.
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