Selected Poems

Here for the first time in one volume is a selection of the astonishing poems of Rita Dove, the nation's new Poet Laureate, the youngest poet so named, as well as the first African-American chosen for the position.
Along with a new introduction and poem, Selected Poems comprises Dove's collections The Yellow House on the Corner, which includes a group of poems devoted to the themes of slavery and freedom; Museum, intimate ruminations on home and the world; and Thomas and Beulah (winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize), a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives. Precise yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.

Celebrating the ascension of the first African American to the position of poet laureate of the United States, this volume places three previous collections under one cover--all of Dove's work with the exception of the recent, fine Grace Notes (1989). The selection begins with The Yellow House on the Corner, Dove's first book, most notable for its poems derived from slave narratives. Museum, her second book, offers a potpourri of work that ranges over several continents and many millenia; Dove's tirelessly exact language illuminates the lives of saints, contemporary lifestyles, and Greek myths. Finally, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas and Beulah offers slices of African American life from the early part of the century; like a patchwork quilt, its many pieces form a stunning ensemble. An excellent gathering of an important poet's work. Pat Monaghan

Dove is a prolific poet whose honors include the Pulitzer Prize and her present appointment as Poet Laureate of the United States (she is the youngest poet and the only African American to have held this post). This book includes poems from her first three books. A prose introduction by the author about becoming a writer ends with a recent autobiographical poem, "In the Old Neighborhood," which reiterates in powerful images the concern with self-definition and history in the older poems. Of strawberries, she writes, "Mom sliced the red hearts into sugar/ and left them to build their own/ improbable juice." Indeed, the personal narrative, both contemporary and historical, drives these poems; full of observed detail, they are shaped by huge events--birth, death, hardship, racism, politics: "No front yard to speak of/just a porch cantilevered on faith." "Thomas and Beulah," the magnificent narrative sequence based on Dove's grandparents' lives, is included in its entirety. Essential.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.