Rita Dove: Novelist and Poet

Rita Frances Dove was born on August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio to African American parents. Her father became one of the first to overcome social racial restrictions when he became a chemical researcher for Goodyear. Dove's mother was a homemaker. At a tender age, Dove was encouraged by her parents, who valued learning and eduation, to develop a great love for reading. Dove practically read whatever she wanted. She eventually went on to be an academic achiever. In1970, she became one of the top 100 American high school graduates for which she became a presidential scholar. Later on, she graduated from the Miami University of Ohio in 1973 with the academic distinction summa cum laude. She went on to study in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar at the Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen in 1974 and then received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. In Iowa she met the German writer Fred Viebahn who eventually became her husband. They have a daughter Aviva. Their family is currently based at Charlottesville, Virginia wher she is an English Commonwealth Prorofessor at the state university.

The Yellow House on the Corner was published in 1980, becoming Dove's first published work. The work presented a collection of poems that revolved around such varied human experiences as romance, adolescence and slavery. Although the work was highly acclaimed, it was another collection of works entitled Thomas and Beulah which eventually garnered for her the great distinction of becoming the second African American poet after Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. This second collection is Dove's poetic account of the lives of her maternal grandparents and the individual sides of their story as well as their thoughts on each other and life. This work has struck critics as original but maintains the integrity of what was really true. While undeniably elegant and intense in dramatic portrayal, Dove's style is also intensely direct.

Although Dove is primarily a poet, she has tried her hand at novel writing through her first novel Through the Ivory Gate. It gives an account of an African American woman and teacher who returns to her hometown Akron to teach children.

Aside from the Pulitzer Prize Dove has also received many other awards including the NAACP Great American Artist Award, the Folgers Shakespeare Library's Renaissance Forum Award, the Charles Frankel Prize, the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, the Common Wealth Award and the General Electric Foundation Award.

She has also been honored with many distinctive positions, foremost among which was as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry of the Library of Congress from 1993-1995. She was the youngest and the first African American to be given such an appointment. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation in 1978 and 1983 respectively and numerous honorary doctorate degrees from various universities.

To promote the appreciation of poetry, she has appeared in television shows like The Today Show and Sesame Street.