Fri., Jan. 17: Pulitzer Prize-winner and former Poet Laureate of the United States Rita Dove reads from her award-winning true tale of the origin of what we know now as the “Kreutzer” Sonata of Beethoven- and George Bridgetower, the Black violinist who inspired him. Shooting star violinist Hannah White makes her Emory debut performing the work with pianist William Ransom. For more information and to register, click here.

The bilingual (English/Italian) edition of "Playlist for the Apocalypse", edited and translated by Ana Ilievska, was recently published by Interno Poesia Editore in Latiano (Brindisi/Apulia).

Sponsored by the Michener Center for Writers, Rita Dove read at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin on Tuesday, October 1. Photos taken by Fred Viebahn.

On Saturday, September 28, Rita Dove and Steven Pinker were honored for their work and longstanding service on the Anisfield-Wolf Awards jury. (Rita Dove has been a member since 1991 and Prof. Pinker since 2002; both have retired from their jury duties this year.) Their conversation, “Words and Wisdom - Celebrating Rita Dove and Steven Pinker,” was moderated by Dr. Jamie Hickner, Associate Director of the Baker-Nord Center at Case Western Reserve University and an Anisfield-Wolf Teaching Fellow. The event took place at The City Club of Cleveland and was streamed for public viewing. Photos by Fred Viebahn.

On Thursday, September 19, Rita Dove read with Jericho Brown, Camille Dungy, and other poets at part of “Black Universe I: FFIV Featured Poets Reading.” On Friday, September 20, she hosted a "Laureate Reading and Conversation" with Angela Jackson, Amanda Johnston, Curtis Cristler, avery r. young, and Glenis Redmond. Both events took place in James Madison University’s Festival Ballroom. 

Rita Dove also attended the first Furious Flower conference in 1994 (photos 1 and 2 below), the second conference in 2004 (photos 3-5), as well as the third conference in 2014 (photos 6-9), which was dedicated to her. Photos 9-20 are from this year's conference; you can view more at Rita Dove's official Facebook page. (All these Furious Flower photos over the years © by Fred Viebahn.)

On Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago presented "A Life in Poetry", featuring Rita Dove in conversation with Elise Paschen, former executive director of the Poetry Society of America. This was Rita Dove's second participation in the widely acclaimed annual event. (In 2017, at a gala dinner preceding the festival, she received that year's Harold Washington Literary Award.) You can listen to a recording of the event by clicking the sound file below.

Photo below of Rita Dove with Elise Paschen and Printers Row programming director Amy Danzer.

On August 29, the Academy of American Poets posted an archived photo of Rita Dove on their Facebook page. The photo was not taken in 1994 as the caption says, but on December 2, 1993 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, on the occasion of Rita Dove introducing and joining in a poetry reading by Nobel laureates Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott and Octavio Paz.

Upon the suggestion of visionary architect David Finehirsch, Rita Dove wrote a poem for “The Dovecote,” a boutique condominium complex at 11 West 126th Street in Harlem, New York, that gave the building its name and now adorns its facade. (Incidentally, from 1947 until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes lived in a nearby 19th-century brownstone, at 20 East 127th Street.)

The mosaic is by Emmett Wigglesworth.

NEWS RELEASE

PBS has announced that Rita Dove will be a featured guest on Season 11 of Henry Louis Gates' popular ancestry show Finding Your Roots, which will begin airing in January 2025.

You can view the trailer on the "Finding Your Roots" Facebook page. 

Additional photos by Fred Viebahn.

On August 13, Rita Dove sang with Doug Schneider, Jessica Wiseman, and Daniel Barrale in "The Great American Songbook Meets Big Band Jazz!" This was the Charlottesville Band's final concert of the summer season.

You can view photos of videos of the performance, credit Fred Viebahn, on Rita Dove's official Facebook page.