Rita Dove

Rita Dove holds an honorary degree from Arizona State University and is a former ASU Department of English faculty member. She is the author of 10 volumes of poetry, including “Thomas and Beulah” (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1986), which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry when Dove was at ASU. Her work “On the Bus with Rosa Parks” (W. W. Norton, 1999) was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and “Collected Poems 1974-2004” (W.W. Norton, 2016) was a finalist for the National Book Award. In addition to poetry, Dove has published a novel, a book of short stories, and numerous essays. Dove served as Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 1993 to 1995 and served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2005 to 2011. Among her many honors are the National Humanities Medal bestowed by President Bill Clinton, and the National Medal of Arts presented by President Barack Obama—making her the only poet who has received both medals, as well as the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. She is presently the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia and more recently received the Wallace Stevens Award 2019 from the Academy of American Poets (Poetry Foundation citation).