Rita Dove, 22nd Annual ODU Literary Festival

Rita Dove served as poet laureate of the United States and consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress form 1993-1995. She has received numerous literary and academic honors, among them the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and, most recently, the 1996 Heinz Award, the 1996 Charles Frankel Prize/National Medal in the Humanities, the 1997 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award and the 1998 Levinson Prize form Poetry magazine. She has published the poetry collections The Yellow House on the Corner (1980), Museum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986), Grace Notes (1989), Selected Poems (1993), and Mother Love (1995); a book of short stories, Fifth Sunday (1985); the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992); essays under the title The Poet\u27s World (1995); and the play The Darker Face of the Earth. A new book of poems, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, was published in April 1999. Ms. Dove is commonwealth professor of English at the University of Virginia