Contributions To The Culture and Black Art - Rita Dove Writer, Poet, Author - By Ayana Bryant-Weekes
National Poetry Day was October 3 and while many writers and literature lovers celebrated and paid homage to poets that created an industry that impacts American culture, I noticed a lot of names that I already recognized. Out of appreciation for black women that contribute to American culture on a consistent basis, I wanted to shed light on a poet that I didn’t know and invite you to celebrate with me.
African-American writer and poet, Rita Dove was born on August 28, 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Rita loved poetry and music from a young age and she was such an exceptional student that she was invited to the White House as a Presidential Scholar with the top one hundred high-school graduates in the country, and attended Miami University in Ohio as a National Merit Scholar. After graduating, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Tübingen in West Germany, and later earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she met her husband, the German writer Fred Viebahn. Rita later taught creative writing at Arizona State University.
Rita Dove made her formal literary debut in 1980 with the poetry collection ‘The Yellow House on the Corner’, which was recognized for its sense of history combined with individual detail and sparked a long and productive career. It also introduced the distinctive writing style that Dove continues to develop.
Dove’s work portrays portions of the black experience in America from both a personal and general perspective, highlighting historical and political events with no remorse. Dove is known not only for the eloquence of her prose but also for her ideology and lyricism which gives a sense of history to overlooked events, and addresses political issues with a personal touch. - in ‘American Smooth’, she reflects on her experiences with ballroom dancing. Pulitzer Prize winning critic Emily Nussbaum says, "For Dove, dance is an implicit parallel to poetry. [...] Each is an expression of grace performed within limits; each an art weighted by history but malleable enough to form something utterly new."
Dove has won numerous awards for her work, including a 1987 Pulitzer Prize for the book of poetry Thomas and Beulah (1986), a semi-autobiographical look at her grandparents’ life and marriage in early 20th-century Ohio, as well as the battles and triumphs of the Civil Rights era, and the career of black violinist and friend to Beethoven, George Polgreen Bridgetower. Some of Dove’s other books include Grace Notes (1989), Mother Love (1995), and Sonata Mulattica. While her 1999 work On the Bus With Rosa Parks was hailed as a “Notable Book of the Year” by The New York Times
In May of 1993, Dove was named the first African American poet laureate of the United States, and the youngest person to hold the position at 41- a post held previously by bards like Robert Penn Warren and Joseph Brodsky. She was also the first woman appointed to the position.
Dove is an inspirational figure for African-Americans and for women, and her own work reflects these two important facets of her life. However, Dove is as much interested in what she has termed "the underside of history" exploring the quiet lives of those who, like ‘Thomas and Beulah’, are ignored and stricken from the pages of history.
In honor of National Poetry Day (Oct. 3), National Art Day (Oct. 25), and National Author’s Day (Nov 1) enjoy “Lady Freedom Among Us” by Rita Dove.
Lady Freedom Among Us
don't lower your eyes
or stare straight ahead to where
you think you ought to be going
don't mutter oh no
not another one
get a job fly a kite
go bury a bone
with her old-fashioned sandals
with her leaden skirts
with her stained cheeks and whiskers and
heaped up trinkets
she has risen among us in blunt reproach
she has fitted her hair under a hand-me-down cap
and spruced it up with feathers and stars
slung over her shoulder she bears
the rainbowed layers of charity and murmurs
all of you even the least of you
don't cross to the other side of the square
don't think another item to fit on a
tourist's agenda
consider her drenched gaze her shining brow
she who has brought mercy back into the streets
and will not retire politely to the potter's field
having assumed the thick skin of this town
its gritted exhaust its sunscorch and blear
she rests in her weathered plumage
bigboned resolute
don't think you can ever forget her
don't even try
she's not going to budge
no choice but to grant her space
crown her with sky
for she is one of the many
and she is each of us
Written by Rita Dove
