A selective list of open access literary criticism, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages
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Carlisle, Theodora. Reading the Scars: Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth. In African American Review, Spring, 2000
Cavalieri, Grace Rita Dove: An interview. American Poetry Review, Mar 1995
Dodson, Angela P. On the wings of a Dove: a collection of literary conversations with poet Rita Dove, from the University Press of Mississippi and other offbeat treasures covering the arts. In Black Issues Book Review, May-June, 2003
Donohue, Cecilia. An introduction to Rita Dove from the Literary Encyclopedia, 12 January 2005. On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999); American Smooth (2004)
Lloyd, Emily. Navigating the personal: An interview with Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Off Our Backs, Apr 1994
Pereira, Malin. "When the pear blossoms / cast their pale faces on / the darker face of the earth: miscegenation, the primal scene, and the incest motif in Rita Dove's work" African American Review, Summer, 2002
Wallace, Patricia. Divided loyalties: literal and literary in the poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cathy Song and Rita Dove - Poetry and Poetics MELUS, Fall, 1993
An introduction to Rita Dove, plus excerpts of reputable critical discussions of some poems, from the Modern American Poetry Site (Univ. of Illinois)
An extended, introductory article on Rita Dove's career, includes list of her works and a secondary reading list, from the Poetry Foundation
The Books Interview: Rita Dove - Flashes of inspiration. The Independent (London), Aug 7, 1999 by Christina Patterson
Rita Dove's faculty page at the Univ. of Virginia contains links to a comprehensive biography, a thorough list of her publications and projects, her CV, several poorly reproduced articles with limited access, and more
A web page from Ploughshares lists the extensive contributions from Rita Dove published in this literary magazine
A profile of Rita Dove from the Heinze Award site
A very brief biography of Rita Dove from the Black Collegian Online
Rita Dove offered brief readings of contemporary poems every week in her column in the Washington Post from September 2001 to December 2003
An interview with Rita Dove, conducted by Steven Ratiner, in the Christian Science Monitor, 5/26/93
A biography of Rita Dove, from an instructional web site, Voices from the Gaps, Women Writers of Color, at the University of Minnesota
A Library of Congress introduction to Rita Dove
A brief introduction to Rita Dove from the Academy of American Poets
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