Dove, Rita (1952-…), an African American poet, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Thomas and Beulah (1986). The collection is based on the lives of Dove’s grandparents and tells the moving story of the couple’s tragedies, struggles, and enduring love. The poems richly portray the history of African Americans who hoped to find a better life by migrating from the rural South to the urban North. Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995.
Dove creates poems with vivid images and lyrical language. She writes both formal sonnets and free verse that defy traditional rhyme and meter. Her poetry addresses a wide range of subjects, including mythology, childhood, slavery, works of art, and historical figures.
Dove’s Selected Poems (1993) collects works from her first six volumes of poetry published throughout the 1980’s, beginning with The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). Her later volumes of poetry include Mother Love (1995), On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999), and American Smooth (2004). In the collection Sonata Mulattica (2009), Dove focuses on George Bridgetower, an English violinist of the 1800’s who was born to a black African or West Indian father and a white Polish mother. Dove’s Collected Poems, 1974-2004 was published in 2016. Playlist for the Apocalypse (2021) is a volume of new poems. Dove has also written short stories; a novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992); and a play, The Darker Face of the Earth (1996). Rita Frances Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, on Aug. 28, 1952.
