Salon Looks at Poetry of Rita Dove

On Sunday November 22, the Poetry Salon at the Abbot Public Library will feature a discussion of the work of Rita Dove, former poet laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

She was born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Her father was a research chemist at the Goodyear plant in Akron and her mother, a homemaker. Her parents encouraged her passion for books. Dove graduated summa cum laude from Miami University of Ohio and became a Fulbright Scholar. She met her husband to be, German novelist and playwright Fred Viebahn, at the University of Iowa. They live in Charlottesville, Virginia with their daughter, Aviva, and Dove teaches at the University of Virginia.

In 1986, Dove published Thomas and Beulah, a semi-autobiographical look at the lives of her grandparents that won the poetry Pulitzer Prize the following year. In May of 1993, Dove was named the poet laureate of the United States by Bill Clinton. She was the first African-American appointed to the position as well as the first woman and the youngest, at 4- years-old. Dove is known not only for the layered eloquence of her language and ideas but also for portraying the black experience, both on a personal and collective front. She has appeared on NBC’s “The Today Show” and others with a self-declared intention “to bring poetry into everyday discourse ... to make it much more of a household word.”

Please join Marblehead poet Claire Keyes at 2:00 pm on Sunday, November 22 for a discussion of Rita Dove’s Sonata Mulattica, a novel in verse form. Poetry packets are available at the Library’s main desk.

The Abbot Public Library is located at 235 Pleasant Street, Marblehead, MA 01945. For additional information, please call 781-631-1481 or visit www.abbotlibrary.org.