Former Pulitzer Prize Winner and Poet Laureate Rita Dove Comes to Wooster

Famed poet will give a reading of her works on Sept. 28 in Wishart Hall

WOOSTER, Ohio - Rita Dove, former Pulitzer Prize Winner and Poet Laureate of the United States, will give a reading of her works on Monday, Sept. 28, at The College of Wooster. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Lean Lecture Room of Wishart Hall (303 E. University St.). A reception will follow in the lobby.

Dove has received numerous literary and academic honors, highlighted by the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She also was a recipient of the 2003 Emily Couric Leadership Award, the 2001 Duke Ellington Lifetime Achievement Award, the 1997 Sara Lee Frontrunner Award, the 1997 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 1996 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the 1996 National Humanities Medal. In 2006, Dove received Virginia's Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service, which she shared with Anderson Cooper, John Glenn and Queen Noor of Jordan; in 2008 she was honored with the Library of Virginia's Lifetime Achievement Award; and in 2009 she received the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal in the Premio Capri (the international prize of the Italian Island "Island of Poetry").

Dove was born in Akron in 1952. She graduated summa cum laude from Miami University of Ohio and earned her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She also held a Fulbright scholarship at the Universität Tübingen in Germany. She has published a range of poetry collections, including The Yellow House on the Corner (1980), Museum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986), Grace Notes (1989), Selected Poems (1993), Mother Love (1995), On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999), and American Smooth (2004). In addition, she published a book of short stories, titled Fifth Sunday (1985); the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992); a collection of essays, titled The Poet's World (1995), and the play The Darker Face of the Earth, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1996 and was later produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Royal National Theatre in London, and elsewhere.

Other works include "Seven for Luck," a song cycle for soprano and orchestra with music by John Williams, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1998. She also delivered a live reading at the Lincoln Memorial, accompanied by John Williams' music for "America's Millennium," the White House's 1999/2000 New Year's celebration.

Dove is the editor of Best American Poetry 2000, and former author of "Poet's Choice," a weekly column in The Washington Post. Her latest poetry collection, Sonata Mulattica, was published by W.W. Norton this past spring. Dove is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her husband, writer Fred Viebahn.

Dove's appearance at The College of Wooster is sponsored by the Department of English, the Department of Africana Studies, the Donaldson Fund, and the Center for Diversity and Global Engagement. Additional information about Dove's reading is available by phone (330-263-2575) or e-mail.