While she acknowledges her role as an African American poet, she does not like being restricted to that role. Though Dove often writes about herself, her family, and black history in America, her works reflect a broad social awareness and deal with a variety of subjects. In the 1986 volume Thomas and Beulah, the black experience from the early 1900s on is revealed through the lives of Dove ’s maternal grandparents. In keeping with her interest in African American history, poems in the third part of The Yellow House on the Corner are written from the vantage point of American slaves.

A collection of selected poems from her first three books was published late in 1993, while a verse-drama is scheduled to come out in 1994. Her work has also appeared in chapbooks, magazines, and anthologies. Celebrated for sensitively revealing personal epiphanies and black American collective experiences, she has published several critically acclaimed books of verse since her late twenties, beginning with her first volume, The Yellow House on the Comer (1980), followed by Museum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986), and Grace Notes (1989). ”ĭove is generally held to be one of America ’s best contemporary verse writers and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987. …When a poem moves you, it moves you in a way that leaves you speechless. “They should stop for a moment and really look at ordinary things and catch their breath. “I think people should be shaken up a bit when they walk through life, ” she commented in Time.

Preceded in the position by black poets Robert Hayden (1976-78) and Gwendolyn Brooks (1985), Dove has infused her role with an unprecedented measure of freshness, resolve, and vitality: she is committed to bringing poetry to the masses throughout the nation. From 1937 to 1985, the position was called consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress in 1986, the name of the consultancy was changed to that of poet laureate. poet laureate Rita Dove is the third African American -and the youngest poet ever -to hold the post of distinction in her field at the U.S. Explores Essence of Her Grandparents ’ Survival in VerseĮvokes Mood of a Decade of Social Change in Novel

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