Rita Dove, a former U.S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, will address the Class of 2013 at this year’s Commencement ceremony on May 13, the University has announced.

Currently the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995.

She was also the special consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress from 1999 to 2000 and the poet laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006.

Dove has received several awards and honors for her work, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her book of poems, Thomas and Beulah.

President Obama honored Dove with the 2012 National Medal of Arts, which recognizes artists and arts patrons for their contributions to the growth, availability and support of the arts in the United States. Dove earned the National Humanities Medal – the nation’s highest honor for writers and scholars – in 1996 from former president Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to receive both of these accolades.

Dove additionally received the Library of Virginia’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal in 2009.

At the Commencement ceremony, Dove will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree as part of the University’s tradition of honoring its Commencement speakers in this way.

Gary Hauk, Emory’s vice president and deputy to the president, wrote in an email to the Wheel that Dove is a “fitting choice” because Emory has been ranked a top campus for aspiring writers, and Natasha Trethewey, Emory’s Robert W. Woodruff professor of English and creative writing, currently holds the poet laureate title.

“It has been too long since a literary artist delivered an Emory Commencement address,” Hauk wrote, noting that the last was Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, in 2003.

In addition, Hauk acknowledged that Emory has one of the largest collections of African-American literary materials in its Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.

According to Hauk, Dove appeared on campus in spring 2011 as a visiting lecturer for programs sponsored by Emory’s Women’s Center, the James Weldon Johnson Institute and the Center for Creativity and Arts.

Throughout her career, Dove’s interdisciplinary approach to her work has prompted her collaboration with musicians, composers and artists, according to a Feb. 12 University press release.

Dove was the first African American to be named poet laureate. The title of poet laureate replaced the former position of consultant in poetry following an act of Congress in 1986. She was the second African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

“Rita Dove’s contributions to our collective intellectual, creative and interdisciplinary life serve as an example of how to create new opportunities for community and collaboration,” University President James W. Wagner said in a Feb. 12 University press release.

Last spring, Hauk convened a committee of approximately 25 members of the Class of 2013 who met three times during the course of about six weeks.

The list offered a variety of potential speakers, including Obama, who was their first choice.

“Although we had been encouraged by someone in the White House to invite him – and did –, it was not until after the election that we could get a response, at which time the message was that they would not be able to confirm until March or April,” Hauk wrote. “We couldn’t wait that long. In the end, we realized that the best possible commencement speaker had already been invited last fall to receive an honorary degree and had accepted – Rita Dove.”

In regard to her speech, Hauk wrote that the University gives its commencement speakers a “wide latitude.”

“The occasion naturally calls for some reflection about the world to which our graduates are going, and the Emory vision they carry with them into the world,” Hauk wrote. “But I imagine that Ms. Dove, as a poet, will avoid clichés, couch her message in vivid language, and inspire our hearts as well as our minds.”

This year’s Commencement ceremony will take place on the Quadrangle with an expected 14,000 attendees, the press release states.

In addition to Dove, Burundi humanitarian activist Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree, and architect and designer Michael Graves will be granted an honorary doctor of fine arts degree.

– By Jordan Friedman 

Emory Wheel
+ posts

The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.

The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.