Marshall Distinguished Lecture: An Evening with Rita Dove

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She was the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986.

Dove’s numerous honors include Lifetime Achievement Medals from the Library of Virginia and the Fulbright Association, the 2014 Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the 2019 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2021 Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as the sixteenth (and third female and first African American) poet in the Medal’s 110-year history.

The Jonathan and Maxine Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series brings to ASU nationally known scholars concerned with promoting culture through the humanities and a better understanding of the problems of democracy. This annual free public lecture is funded with an endowed gift from Jonathan and Maxine Marshall. It is also the signature event for Humanities Week.