and German. She has also published her laure-
ate lectures, The Poet’s World. In her goal to make
poetic language speak to the masses, Dove has
experimented with other genres. In 1985, Dove
published a collection of short stories titled Fifth
Sunday as a part of the CALLALOO fiction series. In
their portrayal of African-Americans lives in vari-
ous settings, many of the stories featured in the
text foreshadow her poetry. While praised for its
style, the book generally received mixed reviews,
but most highlighted the qualities of the text as
promising of future publications.
Dove ventured outside of genre boundaries
again with the publication of a novel, Through
the Ivory Gate (1992). The story revolves around a
young black woman, Virginia King, who returns to
her hometown to serve as an artist-in-residence at
an elementary school. Flashing from the present to
the past, the narrative follows Virginia through a
series of painful memories, encounters with preju-
dice, and shattered relationships.
In 1994, Dove returned to the issue of slavery in
her full-length play, The Darker Face of the Earth:
A Verse Play in Fourteen Scenes. Using slavery as
a frame, Dove creates her own version of the Oe-
dipus tragedy. Described by Theodora Carlisle in
AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW as “imaginative, deeply
compassionate, electric with erotic power, and un-
flinching in its honesty” (147), Dove’s powerful
play has been embraced by many scholars and crit-
ics. The play had its world premiere in 1996 at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival and has been staged
several times since.
Dove has made significant contributions not
only to African-American literature but to all of
humanity by the gestures she has made to reach
the community through language. Dove has
hosted Sesame Street and produced a nationally
televised show about poetry, Shine Up Your Words:
A Morning with Rita Dove for elementary school
children. Dove has made appearances on NBC’s
Tonight Show, read her poetry at the White House,
and wrote the text for Alvin Singleton’s symphony
“Umoja—Each One of Us Counts,” which was
performed during the opening festivities of the
Olympic Games held in Atlanta. Further, Dove’s
continued passion for writing is apparent in her
dedication to giving writers an opportunity to
publish their works, as she is an advisory editor to
more than six literary journals, including Callaloo,
Gettysburg Review, and Mid-American Review.
Given Dove’s many achievements during her
career and the impact she has had throughout the
arts and humanities, the concluding lines of her
“Lady Freedom among Us” seem also to ring true
of Dove herself:no choice but to grant her space
crown her with sky
for she is one of the many
and she is each of us.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carlisle, Theodora. “Reading the Scars: Rita Dove’s
‘The Darker Face of the Earth.’ ” African American
Review 34, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 135–151.
Cushman, Stephen. “And the Dove Returned.” Cal-
laloo 19, no. 1 (1996): 131–134.
Pereira, Malin. Rita Dove’s Cosmopolitanism. Cham-
paign: University of Illinois Press, 2003.
———. “ ‘When the pear blossoms / cast their faces
on / the darker face of the earth’: Miscegenation,
the Primal Scene, and the Incest Motif in Rita
Dove’s Work.” African American Review 36, no. 2
(Summer 2002): 195–212.
Rubin, Stan, and Earl Ingersoll. “A Conversation with
Rita Dove.” Black American Literature Forum 20,
no. 6 (Fall 1986): 227–240.
Steffen, Therese. Crossing Color: Transcultural Space
and Place in Rita Dove’s Poetry, Fiction, and Drama.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Vendler, Helen Hennessy. The Given and the Made:
Strategies of Poetic Redefinition. Cambridge: Har-
vard University Press, 1995.
Cassandra ParenteDuBois, W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt)
(1868–1963)
W. E. B. DuBois stands as the preeminent Afri-
can-American intellectual, scholar, journalist and
political activist of the 20th century. The first Af-148 DuBois, W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt)