Selected Poems [Paperback]

Rita Dove (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 1993

Here in one volume is a selection of the extraordinary poems of Rita Dove, who, as the nation's Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, brought poetry into the lives of millions of people.  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 finally, Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives.  Precisely yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Remarkable . . . a poet of dramatic force." --The New York Review of Books

"Consistently accomplished . . . Dove's is a brilliant mind that seeks for itself the widest possible play, an ever-expanding range of reference, the most acute distinctions, and the most subtle shadings of meaning. . . . Her is a major career." --Arnold Rampersad, Callaloo

"Dove's poems, rich with elegant phrasing and Southern spice, blast tradition by pulling readers into other lives and then dazzle them with an often startling mastery of language." --Boston Globe

"Rita Dove . . . is a devoted and subtle storyteller [whose] gifts are evoking, and sometimes exalting, the everyday moments we live by but may neglect or forget, the music of her words issuing a message of uncanny integrity and calm.  Though often writing of private experience (mothering, mourning death, watching rain), she never seems to lose sight of the world beyond." --Newsweek

From the Inside Flap

Here in one volume is a selection of the extraordinary poems of Rita Dove, who, as the nation's Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, brought poetry into the lives of millions of people.  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 finally, Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives.  Precisely yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage ed edition (September 28, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679750800
• ISBN-13: 978-0679750802
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful poems, September 29, 2000

By 

HuckVT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

Rita Dove's poetry is challenging: lyric, attentive, sure; yet it works in quieter veins than many more exhibitionist poets of the past thirty years. In the volumes collected in this "Selected Poems" Dove explores race, domesticity, history. The single most impressive featis her collection *Thomas and Beulah* which consists of two long sets of lyric poems which, combined, narrate a story (of her grandparents, the Thomas and Beulah of the title) and create a drama -- since the way in which Thomas sees things, in his half of the volume, is utterly different from the way in which Beulah sees things. What is most surprising is how these two people can live together, but in such different worlds. Ther is both strength and delicacy in these poems, and Beulah in particular emerges as one of the more significant figures in contempoary literature.

(Dove's more recent works are also rich, and her "Mother Love" continues to explore, in a new way, the richness of family in America -- this time through a series of inventive sonnets, no two of which use the same sonnet form.)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rita Dove has a strong sense for narrative, April 20, 2007

By 

Anthony Marray "amarrayw" (Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

What I love about Rita Dove's work is that she gives her poems a sense of narrative. It's easy to see why when you consider her background in writing fiction. She is influenced by her desire to give her poetry a self contained atmosphere that you see in fiction. I disagree with readers who think of her work as too cryptic. You really can't expect to fully understand her poems in one reading. You have to stand back (in a way) and think about her imagery and its connection to the narrative (best example to see this would be her work from Thomas and Beulah - which won the Pulitzer).I would recommend also reading "Conversations with Rita Dove" where she gives insight into how she approaches writing poetry and fiction.

3 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I like her personally, though..., July 28, 2004

By 

Master of (sitting here) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

I have all the respect in the world for Rita Dove--she is probably the most active Poet Laureate we have ever had, and I love her ideas, but this poetry is just unreadable--inaccessible and coded.