April 11, 1994

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

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Rita Dove to Lecture

Interview with Bill Moyers to Air April 22

Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Rita Dove will deliver a lecture to close the Library's 1993-94 literary season on Thursday, May 5 at 6:45 p.m. in the Mumford Room of the Madison Building. The lecture is entitled "Stepping Out: The Poet in the World." Tickets are not required.

On Friday, April 22, at 9 pm. EDST, a one-hour interview with Bill Moyers will be broadcast on PBS (check local listings). Ms. Dove joins Bill Moyers for a conversation about her life, her poetry, and her plans for taking poetry to the people. The program includes extensive selections from her work and features her in performance at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo, New Jersey.

Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio. In 1970 she was invited to the White House as a Presidential Scholar, before entering Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, as a National Achievement Scholar. In 1973 she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English and studied for a year on a Fulbright scholarship at the Universität Tübingen in Germany. She then joined the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, earning her M.F.A. degree there in 1977. Since 1989, she has been on the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she is Commonwealth Professor of English.

Ms. Dove's awards and honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation; the Lavan Younger Poet Award of the Academy of American Poets; several honorary doctorate degrees; and a Literary Lion citation from the New York Public Library. Last fall she was named one of the 10 "Outstanding Women of the Year" by Glamour magazine, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People honored her with its 1993 Great American Artist Award.

Her collections of poetry include "The Yellow House on the Corner" (1980); "Museum" (1983); "Thomas and Beulah" (1986), which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize; and "Grace Notes" (1989). She has also written a collection of short stories, "Fifth Sunday," (1985) and a novel, "Through the Ivory Gate" (1992). In 1993, her "Selected Poems" also appeared. A verse drama, "The Darker Face of the Earth," is due for publication this spring. In her spare time, Ms. Dove enjoys playing the viola da gamba, a 17th-century string instrument related to the cello, and sings classical works; occasionally she performs with the University of Virginia's Opera Workshop.

Ms. Dove will begin her second term and the 1994-95 literary season with a presentation on October 6, 1994.

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PR 94-071
4/11/94
ISSN 0731-3527