It’s the birthday of poet Rita Dove (b. 1952), who in 1993 at age 40 became the youngest person ever to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, and the first African American as well (if you don’t count Gwendolyn Brooks, who was Consultant in Poetry before they added the Laureate part).

Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, and was ridiculously gifted academically right out of the gate. She graduated from high school as a Presidential Scholar, which meant a trip to the White House (although those were the Nixon years, so don’t get too excited), and she’s been returning to the White House ever since for more awards, such as the National Humanities Medal given to her in 1996 by President Clinton and the National Medal of Arts given to her in 2011 by President Obama (making her the first poet ever to receive both), and besides her 1987 Pulitzer (*yawn*) she has received more than 27 honorary doctorates, although she’s probably receiving another one or two even as I write this paragraph. (Where does she *put* them all? I’m assuming each doctorate comes with a fancy certificate. I think once you get up over twenty, you should paper a really nice guest bathroom with them. I know someone who did that with New Yorker covers but doctorates would be very nice too.)

Sorry: back to her timeline. Dove was a National Merit Scholar at the weirdly-named Miami University in Ohio, studied in Germany on a Fulbright, and got her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first collection of poetry, The Yellow House on the Corner, came out in 1980, and in 1986 her book Thomas and Beulah, which tells in poetry the fictionalized story of her grandparents, won that Pulitzer mentioned above. Dove has continued to produce brilliant poetry known for dealing with “historical events with a personal touch.” In an interview near the end of her time as Poet Laureate, Dove said, “A lot of what I’ve done these past two years has involved educating young people in matters of poetry, and bringing real poetry into real life—and by that I mean serious and difficult poetry. My experience has been that as soon as people are relaxed, even very difficult poetry becomes accessible” (M. Wynn Thomas, “An Interview with Rita Dove by M.W. Thomas,” Modern American Poetry, August 12, 1995).

Dove has one daughter with her husband, German writer Fred Viebahn, and is the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Dove and her husband are ballroom dancers (of course they are) and you can find videos of them on Youtube dancing the samba etc. I am not making this up. Dove’s poem “American Smooth” begins:

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through…

Read the whole thing here.

Have a fine Tuesday, maybe do a little wallpapering if you’re feeling up to it, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.