News

Rita Dove Featured Guest in "Break Out" Poetry Event

February 15, 2022

This past Saturday, February 12, about half a million people attended Rita Dove's virtual appearance and conversation with Chinese translator Cheng Jia at the 2022 "International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong" via the festival's streaming service. A recording is now available via YouTube:

About the festival: Break Out: IPNHK Reading & Dialogue Series is an online extension of International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong (IPNHK), a biennial program organized by the Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation until November 2019. Created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic that brought social distancing and isolation to our lives everywhere, Break Out presents distinguished poets from around the world and their translators in conversation. Poets, translators, and sometimes scholars read poetry in different languages and discuss topics of common interest. Livestreamed in seven sessions from May to August in 2021, the first season of Break Out featured 12 international poets, drawing over 3.3 million viewers in the process.
Rita Dove Among "40 Black Writers Whose Work Changed The World"

February 08, 2022

In honor of Black History Month, Buzzfeed has posted a list of 40 Black writers, including Rita Dove, "whose work has been a cultural game-changer in the United States and throughout the world." Click here for the full list!
Rita Dove in conversation with Glory Edim and Salamishah Tillet

February 08, 2022

Rita Dove's conversation with Glory Edim and Salamishah Tillet, first streamed live by the New York Public Library on Feb. 3, 2022, is now available on YouTube:
Rita Dove Nominated for NAACP Image Award

January 18, 2022

Earlier today, Playlist for the Apocalypse was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work -- Poetry! Click here for the full list.
Rita Dove a Featured Guest on "Inside UVA" Podcast

January 11, 2022

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan welcomed Rita Dove this week as the tenth guest on his “Inside UVA” podcast. Click here to read more about it and to listen to the episode!
Rita Dove Among the New York Times' "Top Books of 2021"

December 16, 2021

On Playlist for the Apocalypse: Rita Dove’s new collection is about the weight of American history, and it’s also about mortality. It’s the first time she has publicly acknowledged that she has had a form of multiple sclerosis for more than 20 years. Some of these poems address health troubles. Some are about Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama. Garner called the poems “among her best,” and wrote: “Dove’s books derive their force from how she so deftly stirs the everyday — insomnia, TV movies, Stilton cheese, rattling containers of pills — into her world of ideas and intellection, in poems that are by turns delicate, witty and audacious.”

Click here to see the full list!
Rita Dove Among 2021 Portland Book Festival Highlights

December 10, 2021

This episode of “Literary Arts: The Archive Project,” features highlights from the 2021 Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of America. Listen to excerpts from longer discussions between novelist Brandon Taylor and Genevieve Hudson, cartoonist Aminder Dhaliwal and OPB’s Tiffany Camhi, and legendary poet Rita Dove and Mary Szybist.

Click here to listen!
Rita Dove Among Distinguished Alumni at Fulbright 75 Event

December 08, 2021

Rita Dove with Sam Nester (l) and Renée Fleming (r). Photo © Katie Dance.

The Fulbright Program, celebrating its 75^th anniversary throughout 2021, held a spectacular event on November 30 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Alumni, friends, and supporters of the Fulbright Program joined us virtually to celebrate the accomplishments of the past 75 years and to look ahead to the exciting future of the U.S. government’s flagship program of educational and cultural exchange.

The event included personal stories and performances by some of our most extraordinary alumni, including recent participants and those who have had long and distinguished careers. The celebration highlighted the Fulbright Program’s impact in five important areas: the environment; education; public service; science, technology, and public health; and the arts.

Click here for more information on the gala, including photos!
Rita Dove and Susan Graham Discuss "A Standing Witness" on Vermont Public Radio

December 07, 2021

On a cold October night, Middlebury's Mahaney Arts Center hosted the New England premiere of a new work by Richard Danielpour.

Delayed by over a year due to the pandemic, the work, "A Standing Witness" is the result of a collaboration between Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winning former U.S. Poet Laureate, Rita Dove. It was commissioned by Music from Copland House in Peekskill, New York.

The work, a monumental 60-minute long song cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble, connects and interweaves pivotal events from the last 50 years of American history, often highlighting the old adage, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Click here to listen to the full interview!
Playlist for the Apocalypse Named One of NPR’s "Best Books of 2021"

November 30, 2021

Click here to see the full list!

Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing

Rita Dove with Sam Nester (l) and Renée Fleming (r). Photo © Katie Dance.