Thomas and Beulah
by Rita Dove
from Carnegie-Mellon University Press
The poems in this unusual book tell a story, forming a narrative almost like a realistic novel. Read in sequence as intended, they tell of the lives of a married black couple (not unlike Dove's own grandparents) from the early part of the century until their deaths in the 1960s, a period that spans the great migration of blacks from rural south to urban north. But this is merely the social backdrop to the story of a marriage. Two separate sequences offer two views of the couple's lives: the first, "Mandolin," consists of 23 poems giving Thomas's side, and "Canary in Bloom" gives Beulah's in 21 poems. Together they paint a detailed, poetically dense portrait of two lives in all their frailty, dignity and complexity. The collection was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987.
The Darker Face of the Earth
by Rita Dove
from Story Line Press
The Darker Face of the Earth, the first full-length play by Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove, is an Oedipal tragedy of interracial love set on a plantation in pre-Civil War South Carolina. The play has been read on Broadway, and has had full-stage productions at The Kennedy Center, The National Theatre in London, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others.
Rita Dove is the author of numerous books of poetry, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Thomas and Beulah. She has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States, and has been awarded both Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, as well as been the recipient of many of our nation's most prestigious literary awards. Rita Dove lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Selected Poems
by Rita Dove
from Vintage
Here in one volume is a selection of the extraordinary poems of Rita Dove, who, as the nation's Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, brought poetry into the lives of millions of people.  Along with a new introduction and poem, Selected Poems comprises Dove's collections The Yellow House on the Corner, which includes a group of poems devoted to the themes of slavery and freedom; Museum, intimate ruminations on home and the world; and finally, Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives.  Precisely yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.
The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary)
The Best American Poetry 2000 (Best American Poetry)
from Scribner
In her introduction to The Best American Poetry 2000, Rita Dove offers the key to honest appreciation: read the work for itself, not for its creator's name and rank on the great chain of poetic being. With luck it will take the top of your head off, though some poems may only elicit a tingle the first time around. Put those away and come back another time, in another mood. "A poem must sing," she writes, "even if the song elicits horror." And the 75 she ultimately chose--by such poetic senior citizens as Lucille Clifton, Thom Gunn, W.S. Merwin, and the as yet unacknowledged--both sing and explode. Her harvest is as varied and abundant as the garden (and gardener!) Stanley Plumley celebrates in "Kunitz Tending Roses":
Still, there he is, on any given day,Dove does find certain trends, ranging from "the interpolation of personal chronicles with the larger sweep of events" to "elegies for the passing of heroes, of good times, of innocence." Certainly, more than one therapist pops up here--in, for instance, Pamela Sutton's mesmerizing "There Is a Lake of Ice on the Moon" and in Denise Duhamel's intricate "Incest Taboo" (which is a lot more subtle than its title would give out). This dislocating double sestina's 13 stanzas juggle a fear of birds, a brother's death, alcoholism, familial expectations, and so much more. Set free by the form's constraints--the same end-words must recur in each stanza--this poet uses such phrases as "parrot," swoop," "wrong, "hover," hum," and "mother" to great effect, ironies and tragedies accreting. As Duhamel writes in the contributors' notes: "I felt as though I were doing a strenuous combination of math, crossword puzzles, and particle physics."
talking to ramblers, floribundas, Victorian
perpetuals, as if for beauty and to make us
glad or otherwise for envy and to make us
wish for more--if only to mystify and move us.
Some poems are definitely augmented by their creators' explanations--and their prose is often as eloquent as their verse. Others require none. Yet what threatens to steal the poetic show occurs after these comments. The series wizard, David Lehman, asked past and present guest editors to cite their top 15 20th-century American poems, in alphabetical order. It's impossible not to gravitate to this section and silently argue with some selections, approve others wholeheartedly, discover a few for the first time, and remonstrate over certain absences. How marvelous, if unsurprising, to see so many poets voting for Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop (who scores particularly high), and two whom John Hollander wittily terms "the transatlantic problematics," Auden and Eliot. If only Lehman had asked each editor to expound on his or her choices. In this list context, Louise Glück's refusal to "prefer merely fifteen" proves as inspiring as others' elections. Still, it's amusing to watch such poets as Mark Strand, A.R. Ammons, and Lehman himself look for loopholes and stuff the ballot box with also-rans. --Kerry Fried
A mid an "explosion in the interest of poetry nationwide" (The New York Times), The Best American Poetry 2000 delivers one of the finest volumes yet in this renowned series. Guest editor Rita Dove, a distinguished figure in the poetry world and the second African-American poet ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, brings all of her dynamism and well-honed acumen to bear on this project. Dove used a simple yet exacting method to make her selections: "The final criterion," she writes in her introduction, "was Emily Dickinson's famed description -- if I felt that the top of my head had been taken off, the poem was in." The result is a marvelous collection of consistently high-quality poems diverse in form, tone, style, stance, and subject matter. With comments from the poets themselves illuminating their poems and a foreword by series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2000 is this year's must-have book for all poetry lovers.
American Smooth: Poems
by Rita Dove
from W. W. Norton
"Rita Dove pulls the ultimate dance trick: she makes it look easy."—New York Times Book Review
An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate—her first since On the Bus with Rosa Parks. With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage—from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. Like the ballroom-dancing couple of the title poem, smiling and making the difficult seem effortless, Dove explores the shifting surfaces between perception and intimation.
Selected Shorts: Getting There from Here (Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story)
by John J. Clayton
from Symphony Space
Getting There from Here includes, among others, David Schickler's “The Smoker,” read by Robert Sean Leonard; Rita Dove's “Second-Hand Man,” read by Audra McDonald; John J. Clayton’s “The Man Who Could See Radiance,” read by Paul Hecht; and Richard Dooling's “Bush Pigs,” read by Mark Nelson.
Grace Notes: Poems
by Rita Dove
from W. W. Norton & Company
+++
