Selected Poems

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Selected Poems Pub. Date: 9/28/1993 Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
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Selected Poems (1st Edition) Pub. Date: 9/28/1993 Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

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Overview

Here in one volume is a selection of the extraordinary poems of Rita Dove, who, as the nation's Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, brought poetry into the lives of millions of people. Along with a new introduction and poem, Selected Poems comprises Dove's collections The Yellow House on the Corner, which includes a group of poems devoted to the themes of slavery and freedom; Museum, intimate ruminations on home and the world; and finally, Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives. Precisely yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.

Brought together for the first time in one volume are the astonishing poems of the nation's new Poet Laureate--the youngest poet so named, as well as the first African-American chosen for the position. Contains The Yellow House on the Corner, Museum, and Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Contains the poet laureate's previous volumes, The Yellow House on the Corner , Museum and Thomas and Beulah , plus a new introduction and poem. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Dove is a prolific poet whose honors include the Pulitzer Prize and her present appointment as Poet Laureate of the United States (she is the youngest poet and the only African American to have held this post). This book includes poems from her first three books. A prose introduction by the author about becoming a writer ends with a recent autobiographical poem, ``In the Old Neighborhood,'' which reiterates in powerful images the concern with self-definition and history in the older poems. Of strawberries, she writes, ``Mom sliced the red hearts into sugar/ and left them to build their own/ improbable juice.'' Indeed, the personal narrative, both contemporary and historical, drives these poems; full of observed detail, they are shaped by huge events--birth, death, hardship, racism, politics: ``No front yard to speak of/just a porch cantilevered on faith.'' ``Thomas and Beulah,'' the magnificent narrative sequence based on Dove's grandparents' lives, is included in its entirety. Essential.-- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780679750802
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 9/28/1993
Edition number: 1
Pages: 240
Sales rank: 424,081
Series: Vintage Series
Product dimensions: 5.22 (w) x 8.01 (h) x 0.55 (d)

Meet the Author

Riat Dove, Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, was born and raised in Akron, Ohio. She has published the novel Through the Ivory Gate, a collection of stories, a verse drama, a book of essays and five books of poetry, among them Thomas and Beulah, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. The recipient of numerous literary fellowships and awards, she is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia and lives near Charlottesville with her husband, Fred Viebahn, and their daughter, Aviva.

Read an Excerpt

The Secret Garden

I was ill, lying on my bed of old papers,
when you came with white rabbits in your arms;
and the doves scattered upwards, flying to mothers,
and the snails sighed under their baggage of stone . . .

Now your tongue grows like celery between us;
Because of our love-cries, cabbage darkens in its nest;
the cauliflower thinks of her pale, plump children and turns greenish-white in a light like the ocean's.

I was sick, fainting in the smell of teabags,
when you came with tomatoes, a good poetry.
I am being wooed. I am being conquered by a cliff of limestone that leaves chalk on my breasts.

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Anonymous

Posted September 16, 2001

nice collection for a former poet laureate

rita dove gives a good, solid collection that should be added to your library. the poems deal with slavery, race, freedom, home, and has the narrative sequence Thomas and Beulah, which won the pulitzer in 1987 and is the strongest section of the collection.
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Selected Poems

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Editorial Reviews

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Meet the Author

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nice collection for a former poet laureate