Rita Francis Dove (Born: Aug. 28, 1952 , Akron , Ohio , U.S. ), African-American writer and teacher who was poet laureate of the United States in 1993-95. Dove graduated summa cum laude from Miami University in Ohio in 1973 and studied subsequently at Tübingen University in Germany .  She studied creative writing at the University of Iowa (M.F.A., 1977) and published the first of several books of her poetry in 1977. From 1981 to 1989 Dove taught at Arizona State University , leaving that post to teach at the University of Virginia . Her poetry collections, includes "The Yellow House on the Corner" (1980), "Museum" (1983), as well as a volume of short stories entitled "Fifth Sunday" (1985), Dove focused her attention on the particulars of family life and personal struggle, addressing the larger social and political dimensions of black experience primarily by indirection. The Pulitzer Prize-winning "Thomas and Beulah" (1986) is a cycle of poems chronicling the lives of the author's maternal grandparents, born in the Deep South at the turn of the century. Subsequent works include the poetry collections "The O the r Side of the House" (1988), "Mo the r Love" (1995) and the novel "Through the Ivory Gate" (1992). Her play "The Darker Face of the Earth" (published 1994) was first produced in 1996.