News

Tania Leon's "Singsong" ft. Rita Dove's poetry to make New York premiere in 2026

March 06, 2025

In the New York premiere of Singsong, visionary composer Tania León sets to music the hard-edged “cricket poems” of US Poet Laureate (and fellow Pulitzer winner) Rita Dove, creating a rhythmically charged dialogue between the choir’s kaleidoscopic colors and the virtuosic flute inventions of MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase. This piece and others will be performed by the three-time Grammy-winning choir The Crossing at Carnegie Hall on March 24, 2026.

For more information about the performance, click here.
Rita Dove featured in The Cavalier Daily

February 24, 2025

In an insightful feature interview with UVA's student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, Rita Dove reflects on "the resonance of unrecorded stories" and "her approach to writing and teaching". To read the feature by Sophie Hay, click here.
Rita Dove to give 2025 Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading

February 24, 2025

On March 30, 2025, Rita Dove will give the 2025 Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading at the Baltimore Museum of Art Meyerhoff Auditorium. The reading begins at 2:30 pm and will be followed by a book signing.

The Joshua Ringel Memorial Fund honors CTY (Center for Talented Youth) alumnus and avid poetry lover Joshua Ringel and his parents, Mel and Barbara. The fund supports the arts in Baltimore by bringing a distinguished poet to the city each year for a free public poetry reading.

The event is free and open to the public. You can register and find more information here.
Rita Dove and Lara Downes to perform “Tomorrow I May Be Far Away”

February 20, 2025

Hailed for her “luscious, moody and dreamy” playing by the New York Times, pianist Lara Downes is equally celebrated as a musical innovator and cultural investigator. In this collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove, she presents a kaleidoscopic evening of music and poetry inspired by myriad stories of migration and transformation.

The performance will take place at 8 pm on Saturday, February 22 at the Reston Community Center in Reston, Virginia. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Rita Dove interview in Literary Matters Magazine

February 14, 2025

A major new and comprehensive interview with Rita Dove: https://www.literarymatters.org/17-2-the-unguarded-territory-of-thought-a-conversation-with-rita-dove/
A Standing Witness coming to Los Angeles

February 10, 2025

**Cancelled! Hopefully postponed to Fall 2025**

A STANDING WITNESS, Rita Dove's monumental collaboration with composer Richard Danielpour that premiered with Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Susan Graham at Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center and the University of Chicago and was last performed at UVA a year ago, will have a reprise at the storied Ebell Hall in Los Angeles on March 9, again starring Ms. Graham.

https://www.ebellofla.org/events/a-standing-witness
Rita Dove documentary now available free of charge

February 05, 2025

Eleven years after its premiere, Eduardo Montes-Bradley's documentary "Rita Dove - An American Poet" is now available free of charge on YouTube. It was first shown at The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville on January 31, 2014. It is 48 minutes long and contains a wealth of documentary material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mao8itrJafI

Also, there is a recording of the premiere events at the Paramount Theater that includes an homage to Rita Dove by former Dave Matthews Band violinist Boyd Tinsley and a conversation of Rita with novelist and former UVA Creative Writing director Christopher Tilghman, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbtjse9jS_4&t=2747s
Rita Dove to perform with the Cecilia Chorus at New York premiere of "The World Called"

January 29, 2025

Pairing works by Johannes Brahms and the distinguished American composer Adolphus Hailstork (setting a text by former US poet laureate Rita Dove), this powerful concert celebrates the meaning and purpose of our time on earth, and pays tribute to the memory of Heather Heyer in what would have been her 40th birthday year. Heyer’s mother Susan Bro will address the audience, and honored guest Rita Dove will recite her poem from the stage. “The world called, and I answered.”

The concert will be held at 8 pm on Saturday, April 26, 2025 at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage in Carnegie Hall. For more information or to purchase tickets, follow this link.
Rita Dove on "City Lights with Lois Reitzes"

January 24, 2025

An excellent interview with Rita Dove by Lois Reitzes on her WABE (Atlanta NPR) program "City Lights"! After accessing the website below, it can be listened to by first clicking on "Episode Playlist", then scrolling to Jan. 8, 2025 and clicking on the play button. https://www.wabe.org/podcasts/city-lights/
Rita Dove featured on "Finding Your Roots"

January 22, 2025

First broadcast on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, UVA's own Rita Dove, Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing, was featured on the popular PBS program "Finding Your Roots" (in Season 11's Episode 3, Stranger Than Fiction). The one hour program, in which host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the family trees of novelist Amy Tan and poet Rita Dove - traveling across China and the American South to uncover long lost stories of the ancestors who inspired their work - is now available on the Internet without a subscription or streaming service, free of charge and no sign-in requirements, until Feb. 19, 2025: https://www.pbs.org/video/stranger-than-fiction-pleuzj/ .

Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing