Thomas and Beulah
by Rita Dove
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters | 2023 | Winner |
About This Book
Rita Dove's Pulitzer Prize–winning poetry sequence chronicles the lives of Thomas and Beulah—inspired by her maternal grandparents—from their respective origins in the American South through their migration to Akron, Ohio, their marriage, and their separate deaths. Told first from Thomas's perspective, then Beulah's, it reconstructs an entire life through a prismatic sequence of poems.
About the Author
Rita Dove is an American poet who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, the first African American woman ever to hold that position and, at forty years old, the youngest Poet Laureate ever appointed. Born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952, she studied at Miami University of Ohio, the University of Tübingen in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Dove's poetry collection Thomas and Beulah (1986) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and chronicles the lives of her maternal grandparents from their Southern roots through their migration to the industrial North. Read more →
