movement. In an interview with Malin Pereira (in Earl G. Ingersoll, ed., pp.
148–173), she states: “I have nothing against anyone in the Black Arts move-
ment.... Not even artistically. I see how it was absolutely necessary, and I think
a lot of it is really wonderful work, too.” She uses the expression “Don’t fence
me in” to explain her feelings, meaning, of course, that she would write what
she chose and not be proscribed artistically by an agenda not her own. The
Yellow House on the Corner features poems that address the Black Arts move-
ment, including “Upon Meeting Don L. Lee, In a Dream” and “Nigger Song:
An Odyssey.” Students interested in this topic might consider examining the
stance Dove takes in these poems and others toward the Black Arts movement,
considering which aspects of the movement she rejects and/or embraces. She
talks more about her stance with Pereira in Ingersoll (pp. 148–173). For more
on the history of the movement and writers associated with it, students can
consult The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s,
edited by James Edward Smethurst (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 2005); New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement, edited by Lisa
Gail Collins and Margo Natalie Crawford (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 2006); and part 1 of Larry Neal’s useful essay “The Black
Arts Movement” (1968); reprinted in “The Black Aesthetic: Background” in
The Black Aesthetic Movement, edited by Steven Serafin, Dictionary of Literary
Biography Documentary Series, volume 8 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991).
- Dove has significant musical training and has provided the texts for major
musical works by composers Tania León (1996 and 2006) and Bruce Adolphe
(1997). Her song cycle Seven for Luck, with music by John Williams, premiered
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and at Tanglewood on 25 July 1998;
some of the songs and a conversation between writer and composer were fea-
tured in the popular PBS television series Boston Pops. Dove also collaborated
with John Williams on Steven Spielberg’s The Unf inished Journey and read her
text live at the premiere of this documentary during “America’s Millennium”
at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on New Year’s Eve 1999. In 2001 the
Museum for Contemporary Art in Chicago premiered Thomas and Beulah,
set to music by Amnon Wolman. Students with interests in music themselves
might analyze some of Dove’s poetry for its musical qualities. What forms/
patterns does she draw on in structuring her collections and in the individual
poems themselves? How does musical metaphor help Dove to explore and
develop themes in her work? Alternatively, students might investigate Dove’s
use of dance imagery and forms in her poems (particularly in American
Smooth); Dove includes video of her dancing on her faculty homepage at the
University of Virginia. The interview with Robb St. Lawrence will be helpful
to an investigation of the intersections between dance or music and Dove’s
poetry.
- Dove’s work often features historical figures. Some examples are the abolition-
ist and dealer in used clothes featured in “David Walker (1785–1830)” (in The
Yellow House on the Corner); African American mathematician, astronomer,
and farmer Benjamin Banneker in “Banneker” (in Museum); blues singer Billie
Holliday in “Canary” (in Grace Notes); and civil-rights activist Rosa Parks in
Rita Dove 221
