Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove has published numerous books, most recently Sonata Mulattica and Collected Poems 1974-2004; she also edited The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Among her many awards are the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. She is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
Poetry
May/June 2021
Soup
When the doctor said I’ve got good news and bad news, I thought of soup—how long it had been since I had had the homemade kind, the real deal where […]
Poetry
May/June 2021
Island
A room in one’s head is for thinking outside of the box, though the box is still there—cosmic cage, Barnum’s biggest, proudest Ring. My land: a chair, four sticks with […]
Nature’s Nature
Mar/Apr 2021
The Spring Cricket Observes Valentine’s Day
Twenty-four hours dedicated to the heart and the heart in question a caricature of something that never existed: half a butterfly squeezing out of a lace-trimmed corset, a fantasy floozy, […]
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2018
Canary
Receiving the KR award involves a greater engagement with our literary community and our students than simply being honored at the Rainbow Room in New York on November 7. Professor […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Concert at Hanover Square
June 2, 1790. George Bridgetower andFranz Clement: child prodigies, of an age Do not think for a momentthat we were boys. Soulsin a like anguish, perhaps;or when in a fortunate […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
The Wardrobe Lesson
Friedrich Bridgetower to his son, 1789 Everyone in this brine-soused village believes an African loves color—so let it be red for our promenade along the Steyne, with a splash of […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Ode on a Negress Head Clock, with Eight Tunes
Marlborough goes off to war La da da, da da da da … Whirligiggery in the key of Grand Accidental Design: a clock-and-music-box inside the head of a woman. Beneath […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
Janissary Rap
Africans on parade: London, 1790 See the fine thing with her wig all skyward, primping along the Pall Mall? I’m gonna shake my Jinglin’ Johnny till she swoons from my […]
Interview
Summer 1994
Isn’t Reality Magic? An Interview with Rita Dove
Rita Dove was born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio, and holds a B.A. from Miami University and an M.F.A. from Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has been a Fulbright Scholar studying […]
Fiction
Spring 1992
From through the Ivory Gate
Virginia turned her car out of the Saferstein Tower parking lot and headed down Copley Hill. She decided to drive around town. Would she be able to find her old […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
Grape Sherbet
The day? Memorial. After the grill Dad appears with his masterpiece— swirled snow, gelled light. We cheer. The recipe's a secret and he fights a smile, his cap turned up […]
From Through the Ivory Gate
From the Kenyon Review, New Series, Spring 1992, Vol. XIV, No. 2 Virginia turned her car out of the Saferstein Tower parking lot and headed down Copley Hill. She decided […]