Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio, USA) is an American poet and author. In 1987 she became the second African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (after Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950). From 1993 to 1995 she served as the first Black and the youngest Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952 as the daughter of the first African American research chemist who broke the race barrier in the tire industry. Her mother, Elvira Dove nee Hord, had been an honors student in high school and loved to read literature -- a passion her daughter would share with her early on. A 1970 Presidential Scholar as one of the 100 top American high school graduates that year, Rita Dove graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Miami University in 1973 and received her MFA from the University of Iowa in 1977. In 1974/75 she held a Fulbright Scholarship at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany. She received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and served as Poet Laureate of the United States / Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress from 1993-1995; 1999/2000 she was Special Bicentennial Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, and from 2004-2006 she was Poet Laureate of Virginia. In 1993, at age 40, Dove was elected poet laureate of the United States, making her both the youngest and the first African American author to hold that position. As poet laureate she concentrated on spreading the word about poetry and increasing public awareness of the benefits of literature. Since 1989 she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English. Dove lives in Charlottesville with her husband, the German-born writer Fred Viebahn. They have a grown daughter, Aviva Dove-Viebahn. Before moving to Virginia, she taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989.
geometry
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
...[read poem]
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the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
...
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