Biography Essay

Rita Dove's poems began to appear in print as early as 1974, but until 1987, the year she won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Thomas and Beulah (1986), her name was mentioned only occasionally in college classrooms and at meetings of learned societies. Not long after she won the Pulitzer Prize, though, her name and works began to appear in college courses and academic panels on American literature, African American studies, and women's studies. Before Dove won the Pulitzer Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks was the only African American poet who had gained this coveted award.

Born in Akron, Ohio, to well-educated parents, Dove is the daughter of Ray A. Dove, the first African American chemist to break the racial barrier in the tire-and-rubber industry. Her mother is the former Elvira Elizabeth Hord. In 1970, shortly before her eighteenth birthday, Dove was invited to the White House as a "Presidential Scholar...