Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio in in 1952, to Ray and Elvira Hord Dove. After graduating summa cum laude with a B.A. degree from Miami University in Ohio in 1973, she received a Fulbright award to study at the University of Tübingen in West Germany. From there, she went to the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she completed an M.F.A. in creative writing in 1977.

Dove joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 1981 and spent 1982 as writer-in-residence at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University).

While at Arizona State she participated in two literary panels for the National Endowment for the Arts (1984-1986) and served on the board of the Associate Writing Programs from 1985 to 1988.

In 1987, Dove became a member of the Commission for the Preservation of Black Culture at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. She also held several editorial positions on journals such as Callaloo, Gettysburg Review, and TriQuarterly.

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983 and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1986. She then wrote Thomas and Beulah (1986), a collection of poems based on her grandparents’ lives. Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Thomas and Beulah in 1987, making her the first African American woman to achieve this award since Gwendolyn Brooks received it in 1950.

In addition to several chapbooks including Ten Poems (1977) and The Only Dark Spot in the Sky (1980), Dove's early works of poetry include The Yellow House on the Corner (1980) and Museum (1983). These works were praised by reviewers for their technical skill and wide range of subject matter.

Her other poetry collections include Grace Notes (1989), Selected Poems (1993), and Mother Love (1995). She also wrote a book of short stories entitled Fifth Sunday (1985); a novel, Through the Ivory Gate (1992); and a play named The Darker Face of the Earth (1994).

Critic Emily Grosholz declares that “Dove can turn her poetic sights on just about anything and make the language shimmer.”

In 1989 Dove accepted a faculty position at the University of Virginia, where she was promoted to an endowed chair as the Commonwealth Professor of English in 1993. That same year, at the age of 40, Dove became the youngest person and first African American to be honored as United States Poet Laureate, a title she held through 1995.

Dove has received numerous honorary doctorates and literary awards, including the NAACP Great American Artist Award in 1993 and the Charles Frankel Prize/National Humanities Medal in 1996.



Seven for Luck, a song cycle for soprano and orchestra with music by John Williams, was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1998.

For "America's Millennium", the White House's 1999/2000 New Year's celebration, Ms. Dove contributed -- in a live reading at the Lincoln Memorial, accompanied by John Williams's music -- a poem to Steven Spielberg's documentary, The Unfinished Journey.

She is the editor of Best American Poetry 2000, and from January 2000 to January 2002 she wrote a weekly column, "Poet's Choice", for The Washington Post.

Her new poetry collection, American Smooth, was published by W.W. Norton & Company in September 2004.


Rita Dove lives with her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn. They have a grown daughter, Aviva Dove-Viebahn.

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