Behind Visions & Verse
The Extraordinary Rita Dove
Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. A 1970 Presidential Scholar, she attended Miami University of Ohio, Universität Tübingen in Germany, and the University of Iowa, where she earned her creative writing MFA in 1977. In 1987 she received the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poetry, Thomas and Beulah, and from 1993 to 1995 she served as U.S. Poet Laureate at the Library of Congress.
Everyone Is (or can be) a Poet
Benjamin Bannaker (sometimes spelled Banneker) was a talented mathematician, astronomer, and writer, recognized as one of the first important African American intellectuals.
A Long Journey
I recently discovered this profound poem by the renowned poet John Greenleaf Whittier, written in the year 1862, during a tumultuous period when America was embroiled in a devastating war with itself over the deeply polarizing issue of slavery.