Finalist for the 2016 National Book Award Finalist for the 2017 NAACP Image Award Three decades of powerful lyric poetry from a virtuoso of the English language in one unabridged volume.
Rita Dove’s
Collected Poems 1974–2004
showcases the wide-ranging diversity that earned her a Pulitzer Prize, the position of U.S. poet laureate, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Medal of Art. Gathering thirty years and seven books, this volume compiles Dove’s fresh reflections on adolescence in
The Yellow House on the Corner
and her irreverent musings in
Museum
. She sets the moving love story of
Thomas and Beulah
against the backdrop of war, industrialization, and the civil right struggles. The multifaceted gems of
Grace Notes
, the exquisite reinvention of Greek myth in the sonnets of
Mother Love
, the troubling rapids of recent history in
On the Bus with Rosa Parks
, and the homage to America’s kaleidoscopic cultural heritage in
American Smooth
all celebrate Dove’s mastery of narrative context with lyrical finesse. With the “precise, singing lines” for which the
Washington Post
praised her, Dove “has created fresh configurations of the traditional and the experimental” (
Poetry
magazine).