Adolescence rita dove11/22/2023 ![]() I understand that she is waiting for something that is soon to come, and therefore stays up in the nights worrying or anticipating this event as she waits in her bathroom. I cannot grasp the complete meaning of her words. I picked this poem of Rita Dove because it was perhaps the most baffling to me of all her poems. ![]() Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue. They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness. Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight, Patting their sleek bodies with their hands. One on the bathtub edge one leans against the door. Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as roundĪs dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines. ![]() Venetian blinds slice up the moon the tiles quiver in pale strips. Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert. Copyright © 1986 by Rita Dove.Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting. Rita Dove, “Wingfoot Lake,” from Thomas and Beulah (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1986). Had been harder, waiting for something to happen,Īnd Goodyear hadn’t begun to dream of a park Waxy beef patties and Salem potato chip bags. So much of it, the swimmers’ white arms juttingĭragging her to their husbands’ company picnic, On her 36th birthday, Thomas had shown her Here’s the poem that U2 has included in its tour: In 2015, she was awarded China’s 10th Poetry and People International Prize, becoming the first American and first English-speaking poet ever to receive the honor. She has won several lifetime achievement awards, holds 25 honorary doctorates, has published more than 15 books and has been part of numerous musical collaborations and audiovisual productions. The closest concert to Charlottesville, a June 20 gig in Washington, D.C., is sold out.ĭove, who joined UVA’s Creative Writing faculty in 1989, received the National Humanities Medal and National Medal of Arts from two presidents and is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The band will play a total of 33 shows, moving from the U.S. “Wingfoot Lake” captures 1964 segregation in Ohio, where Dove grew up, and hints at the growing Civil Rights Movement as seen through Beulah’s – her grandmother’s – eyes.Īfter kicking off its tour May 12 in Vancouver, British Columbia, U2 played its first American concert on this tour in Seattle on Mother’s Day. The poem comes from her third book, “Thomas and Beulah,” which won the Pulitzer Prize the same year “Joshua Tree” solidified the band’s fame and reputation, 1987. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. My already high regard for Bono and U2 has increased even more – not just because they selected my poem, but because with their ‘Joshua Tree’ revival concert, they are reminding their large audience why we need poetry,” said Dove, who served as U.S. “I was particularly pleased with the selection of my poem ‘Wingfoot Lake,’ since it deals with a unique perspective of the American Dream, both the ideal and the sometimes sobering truth of experience for wide segments of the American people – and not only so-called minority populations. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications) The whole idea of projecting poetry on a screen before the concert allows the audience to connect with these words on their own. I was contacted out of the blue and told that the band had chosen poems that reflect the American experience. “After all, poetry is not usually presented in its pristine state – that is, as a text, without musical accompaniment – at a rock concert. “To say that I was beyond surprised is an understatement,” Dove wrote in an email. One of Dove’s poems, “Wingfoot Lake,” appears on a giant on-stage video screen, slowly scrolling as the concert-goers enter the stadium – one of several poems included in the pre-show audiovisual program. On U2’s tour marking the 30th anniversary of its “The Joshua Tree” concept album about America, one of Dove’s poems is part of the tour’s multimedia production. Now she can add another unusual collaboration – with the international rock band, U2. She has seen one of her poems painted in a mural on the side of a hotel near UVA and heard her song cycle “ Seven For Luck” set to music by John Williams, among other distinctions. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, has spent a good part of her professional life bringing poetry to the people.
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