In the quiet corners of history, where the official record fades into the margins, you will find the poetry of Rita Dove. A cellist, a ballroom dancer, and the youngest person ever appointed Poet Laureate of the United States, Dove does not just write verse; she composes music on the page. Her work is a meticulous restoration of the past, polishing the forgotten stories of ordinary people until they gleam with the weight of myth.
Born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952, to a father who was the first African American research chemist in the tire industry, Dove grew up in a house where books were as essential as air. This middle-class, Midwestern upbringing would later become the soil for her most celebrated work, the 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, "Thomas and Beulah."
If you are new to Rita Dove, this is where you must begin. "Thomas and Beulah" is not just a book of poems; it is a novel in verse, loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents. It tells two sides of a marriage—his struggles with the limitations of race and labor, and her quiet, often stifled interior life.
In the famous poem "Daystar," Dove captures a fleeting moment of freedom for a mother overwhelmed by domestic duty. Listen to how she carves out a sanctuary of silence:
"She wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.
So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children’s naps.
Sometimes there were things to watch—
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day."
That phrase—"pure nothing, in the middle of the day"—is pure Dove: accessible, precise, and devastatingly resonant.
But Dove’s gaze extends far beyond the domestic. She is a poet of the world, unafraid to confront the brutality of political history. In her chilling masterpiece "Parsley," she examines the 1937 massacre of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic ordered by dictator Rafael Trujillo. The massacre hinged on a single shibboleth: the ability to roll the 'r' in the Spanish word for parsley, "perejil." Those who could not were killed.
Dove enters the mind of the dictator with terrifying calmness:
"El General searches for a word; he is all the world
there is. Like a parrot imitating spring,
we lie down screaming as rain punches through
and we come up green."
And later, the deadly decree:
"The word the general’s chosen is parsley.
It is fall, when thoughts turn
to love and death..."
"He will
order many, this time, to be killed
for a single, beautiful word."
This ability to blend the lyrical with the horrific is what makes her work so innovative. She treats history not as a list of dates, but as a series of intimate, sensory experiences.
Her life in poetry has been equally dynamic. In 1993, at age 40, she became the first African American Poet Laureate of the United States. Years later, after her home was struck by lightning and damaged by fire, she and her husband took up ballroom dancing as a way to reclaim joy. This passion led to her collection "American Smooth," where the rhythm of the dance floor infuses the rhythm of the line. As she writes in the title poem, they dance for "ecstatic mimicry / being the sine qua non / of American Smooth."
From the cello strings of her youth to the ballroom floors of her later years, Rita Dove has always understood that poetry is a physical act. It breathes. It moves. And perhaps no line summarizes her philosophy—and the resilience of the subjects she chooses—better than the closing line of her poem "Canary," dedicated to Billie Holiday:
"If you can’t be free, be a mystery."
Rita Dove remains one of American literature’s true masters, teaching us that whether in a palace or a kitchen, a history book or a dance hall, there is poetry waiting to be heard.
Backgrounder Notes
Here are key concepts and historical references from the article, annotated with background information to deepen the reader's understanding.
Poet Laureate of the United States Appointed annually by the Librarian of Congress, this official position serves as the nation’s official ambassador for poetry, tasked with raising national awareness and appreciation of the art form. When Rita Dove was appointed in 1993, she was not only the youngest person to hold the title but also the first African American, marking a significant shift toward inclusivity in the American literary canon.
Novel in Verse This is a hybrid narrative form that combines the plot, character development, and length of a novel with the structural and rhythmic elements of poetry. In Thomas and Beulah, Dove utilizes this structure to tell a cohesive, chronological family saga through a series of interconnected lyric poems rather than prose.
The Parsley Massacre (1937) Historically known as el corte ("the cutting"), this was a genocidal campaign executed by the Dominican army that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. The massacre was driven by anti-Haitian racism and disputes over the borderlands between the two nations.
Rafael Trujillo (1891–1961) Trujillo was a military dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic with an iron fist for over 30 years, an era known as "El Trujillato." His regime was characterized by extreme personality cults, the suppression of civil liberties, and state-sponsored violence, of which the Parsley Massacre is the most infamous example.
Shibboleth Originating from a story in the Hebrew Bible (Judges 12:6), this term refers to a word or custom used to distinguish members of one group from another, often based on pronunciation. In the context of the 1937 massacre, the Spanish word perejil (parsley) served as a lethal test; Haitians, whose native Creole language makes the trilled Spanish 'r' difficult to pronounce, were identified and killed based on their articulation of the word.
American Smooth In the world of ballroom dance, "American Smooth" is a style that includes the Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, and Viennese Waltz, distinguished by allowing partners to release their embrace and move independently. Dove uses this term as a double entendre to describe both the dance form she practices and the fluid, improvisational, yet disciplined nature of American cultural identity.
Billie Holiday (1915–1959) Nicknamed "Lady Day," Holiday was a seminal American jazz singer known for her unique vocal phrasing and her ability to manipulate tempo and emotion. Dove’s poem "Canary" invokes Holiday to explore the complex relationship between an artist’s public performance of glamour and the private reality of racial oppression and personal trauma.
