Among other notable awards, the American poet and essayist Rita Dove received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987, and served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, andas Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020 she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

Her works include: the poetry collections Playlist for the Apocalypse (New York: W. W. Norton, 2021), Collected Poems 1974-2004 (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2016), Sonata Mulattica (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), American Smooth (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), On the Bus with Rosa Parks (New York: Norton, 1999), Mother Love (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), Selected Poems (Pantheon/Vintage, 1993), Grace Notes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie Mellon Press, 1986), Museum (Carnegie Mellon, 1983), The Yellow House on the Corner (Carnegie Mellon Press, 1980); the essay collection The Poet's World (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, 1995); the drama The Darker Face of the Earth: A Verse Play in Fourteen Scenes (Story Line Press, 1994); the novel Through the Ivory Gate (Pantheon Books, 1992); and the short story collection Fifth Sunday (University of Kentucky, Callaloo Fiction Series, 1985). [from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Dove]