Rita Dove - 1952
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Sycamore High School, Cincinnati, Ohio
I. Personal and Professional Biography
"With the consistently accomplished work of … Rita Dove, there is at least one clear sign if not of a coming renaissance of poetry, then at least of the emergence of an unusually strong new figure who might provide leadership by brilliant example" (Arnold Rampersad qtd. in Bloom 63).
Born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952 ("Rita Dove" par. 1), Rita Frances Dove was the second child born to Ray A. Dove and Elvira Elizabeth Hord (Bloom 59). Elvira was a housekeeper, and Ray
was the first black chemist at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron (Gates 481). Dove's childhood proved to be relatively stable; her family was "…a first-generation
middle-class family" (Dove qtd. in Gates 481). Rita Dove was an ambitious child and a very good student; she was ranked among the top one hundred high school seniors in the nation
and was therefore invited to the White House as a "Presidential Scholar." Dove then went on to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She graduated summa cum laude in 1973 and entered
Tubingen University in West Germany on a Fulbright scholarship (Bloom 59).
While in Germany, Dove studied expressionist drama and the works of Rilke and Paul Celan (Gates 482). She also became increasingly interested in the circumstances that German black women faced. Dove actively sought out black Germans in an attempt to understand their attitudes and feelings, and she discovered that many of them suffered from the same sense of isolation and rejection that she had felt while in the United States. Rita Dove began to write about the "…possibility of unified action among black communities worldwide" (Bloom 59) that would "…inspire a revolution in world consciousness" (59). Once she had returned to the United States, Dove entered the Iowa Writers Workshop and received her M.F.A. in 1977. She began to concentrate on her poetry, and her poems were increasingly included in various literary magazines and journals (59).
Rita Dove's publishing career officially began with the publication of Ten Poems, a book of verse that "…revealed her interest in the revolutionary politics of the 1960s as well as the influence of other black revolutionary poets on her work, such as Don L. Lee (Haki R. Madhubuti) and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)" (Bloom 59). Dove's next release was The Yellow House on the Corner (1980); unfortunately, the media did not think too much of it (59). This collection of poems was more of an experiment for Rita Dove than anything; she attempted to play with the language and diction used in her writing (Gates 483). Dove's biggest breakthrough, however, came with the releases of Museum in 1983 and Thomas and Beulah in 1986. It was not until the publications of these books of verse that she was given considerable critical praise (Bloom 59). Rita Dove was awarded the highly prestigious Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Thomas and Beulah; she was only the second black person to do so ("Rita Dove" par. 1).
Dove began her teaching career at Arizona State University in 1981, where she was an English professor. She was a writer in residence at the Tuskegee Institute in 1982 and has served on the literature panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. Dove has been the commissioner of the Schomburg Center for the Preservation of Black Culture at the New York Public Library since 1987, and she became a professor of English at the University of Virginia in 1989 (Bloom 60). She currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia where she continues to teach English at the university.
Although not even fifty years old, Dove has accumulated a variety of awards: the Pulitzer Prize for Thomas and Beulah, the Academy's Lavan Younger Poets Award, a Mellon Foundation grant, an NAACP Great American Artist award, Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities ("Rita Dove" par. 1). Arguably her most honorable award, however, was her position of the United States Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995. She was the first African American woman to receive this distinction (Bloom 60).
II. Writing Habits and Locations
Because she currently lives in the mountains of Virginia, Dove tends to spend her writing time alone in her home (Bloom 60). Though very active in her community, she manages to set aside enough time to fully focus on her writing each day. Dove prefers to write in seclusion; the harsh noises of a busy city street are very distracting (Bloom 60).
Regarding her mindset when writing, Rita Dove said, "Every time I write a poem, I try to imagine the reader -- the reader that I was -- curled up on the couch, at the moment of opening a book and absolutely having my world fall away and entering into another one" (qtd. in Long par. 1).
III. Published Works
Though not complete, here is a list of Rita Dove's most well-known publications:
Ten Poems (1977)
The Yellow House on the Corner (1980)
Museum (1983)
Thomas and Beulah (1986)
The Other Side of the House (1988)
Grace Notes (1989)
Through the Ivory Gate (1992)
The Darker Face of the Earth (1994)
In addition, some of her most well known poems are:
"Parsley"
"Thomas and Beulah" (This was both the title of a collection of poems and the title of a single poem.) (Bloom 60)
"The Abduction" (Dove 31)
"Sightseeing" (10)
IV. List of Interviews
There are many informative interviews with Rita Dove found on the Internet, but the following links provide some of the better question-and-answer sessions with the author:
In this interview, Ms. Dove discusses her views on the position of Poet Laureate, as well as some of the poets who have influenced her writing in the past.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/dove-interview.html#interviewRita
In her interview with Marion Long, Rita Dove advocates her belief that reading is essential to the growth of children. She describes the influences that reading as a child had on her later writing.
http://www.homearts.com/depts/relat/dovef1.htm
Dove discusses at great length the origin of one of her most famous poems, "Parsley."
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/interview.htm
V. Links to Related Information
If you would like more information on Rita Dove, I would highly recommend these sites to you:
The Modern American Poetry website includes excellent information on Rita Dove. There are links to outside interviews and other sources as well. This is a highly informative site.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/dove.htm
This website displays many of Dove's poems, as well as the necessary background information.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/dove.html
The University of Virginia's website contains a page dedicated to Rita Dove's statistical information: her accomplishments, awards, memberships, projects, and list of every book Dove has published.
http://www.engl.virginia.edu/faculty/dove.html
This Poets.org website covers the general biography of Rita Dove. While not extensive in its entirety, it definitely gives the reader the most important facts regarding the life of Dove.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=188
VI. How to Contact the Author
If you would like to contact Rita Dove, you can email her at any of the following addresses:
rfd4b@Virginia.EDU
rfd4b@unix.mail.virginia.edu
rita_dove@Virginia.EDU (This is Dove's most used address.)
You can also call Ms. Dove's office at (804) 924-6618 or fax her at (804) 924-1478. If you would like to mail her a letter, the address is as follows:
Rita Dove
c/o English Language & Lit Dept
PO Box 400121, 219 Bryan Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
VII. Critical Review
Rita Dove has been both highly criticized and equally commended for her poetry. Poetry critic Ekaterini Georgoudaki states,
"As a black woman living in the predominantly white societies of the Old and New World, having entered an inter-racial and inter-cultural marriage (her husband is a German writer), and trying to forge an autonomous female poetic voice against the background of a male dominated Euro- and Afro-American literary tradition, Dove has often crossed social and literary boundaries, violated taboos, and experienced displacement…wherever she has stayed" (qtd. in Bloom 71).
Fellow reviewer Kirkland C. Jones commented on Rita Dove's language in her poetry: "In Dove's poems, dramatic monologue and compressed narrative are the primary contexts through which the language of the people is presented" (qtd. in Bloom72). In an interview with Rita Dove, Helen Vendler posed this question:
"I wonder if any of the labels that could be attached to you—that you're a woman writer, that you're a black writer, that you're an American writer, that you're a contemporary writer—have meaning for you and to what extent your work comes out of those sociological grids into which you might be said to fit" (qtd. in Gates 488).
In response, Dove replied,
"I could answer: all the above. Certainly I come out of all those and they impinge on my writing at all times, in a way. First and foremost is just the language that is my clay and my primary interest. I try not to think about it, certainly not when I'm writing. But I am also positive that the fact that I am a woman, that I am black, that I am an American, and that I'm living in the time that I'm living in now has an enormous impact on my writing. And probably not only on the content, but certainly on the way it's presented or what I feel impelled to write about. For instance, the fact that, when I was growing up, I could not find anything written about what it was like to grow up as a black woman, or woman-child, was important—I wanted to read that book, so I try to write those poems. Obviously I can't force them, but it's a hole that I'm trying to fill. In terms of labels, though, in terms of whether I want to be called on thing or another—I want to be called a poet. I'm also a black poet, I'm a woman poet. If that means that my books get filed in the women's study section or the black history section, and not cross-listed in the general literature section, then I say no. But that's someone else's problem" (qtd. in Gates 488).
In general, Rita Dove is noted for her poignant and sentimental poetry that goes straight to the heart of its readers. When Thomas and Beulah won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, poet and essayist Robert McDowell wrote that Dove's poetry contains a "synthesis of striking imagery, myth, magic, fable, wit, humor, political comment, and a sure knowledge of history" (qtd. in Long par. 4). Her poems often include references (whether directly or indirectly) to slavery and the horrors that blacks were forced to face.
VIII. Influences
Obviously, Rita Dove's African-American heritage greatly influences her writing. A vast majority of her stories and poems deal with the daily struggles to which blacks in America have been subjected for so many years (Gates 483). Regionally, Dove was influenced by her father's job at Goodyear and her family's fortunate financial stability. Because she spent the first twenty-two years of her life in Ohio, one must also consider the effect of her surroundings on Dove's writing. In regard to other writers, Rita Dove feels that she had been most influenced by Langston Hughes, Shakespeare, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Heine (Kornbluth par 27).
IX. Rita Dove: "Variation on Pain"
Two strings, one pierced cry.
So many ways to imitate
The ringing in his ears.
He lay on the bunk, mandolin
In his arms. Two strings
For each note and seventeen
Frets; ridged sound
Humming beneath calloused
Fingertips.
There was a needle
In his head by nothing
Fit through it. Sound quivered
Like a rope stretched clear
To land, tensed and brimming,
A man gurgling air.
Two greased strings
For each pierced lobe:
So is the past forgiven.
X. Works Cited
Bloom, Harold, ed. Black American Women Poets and Dramatists. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996.
Dove, Rita. Selected Poems. New York, New York: Random House, Inc., 1993.
Gates Jr., Henry Louis, ed. Reading Black, Reading Feminist. New York: Meridian Publishers, 1990.
Kornbluth, Jesse. "An Interview with Ms. Dove." 32 pars. 31 Jan. 2001 http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/dove/doveInterview.html#intervi ewRita>.
Long, Marion. "Rita Dove: A Western Canon, Jr." 12 Feb. 2001
http://www.homearts.com/depts/relat/dovef1.htm>.
"Rita Dove." Poets.org. 31 January 2001
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=188>.
This essay was submitted by a student of Breen Reardon, an English teacher at Sycamore High School in Ohio.