When the Folger reopens on June 21 and you come to take a walk in our new west garden, look down at the garden bed. There, you'll see a new poem, written for the Folger by US Poet Laureate emerita Rita Dove. This week, she joins us on the podcast to read that poem aloud for the first time. Plus, Dove reflects on how writing for marble is different from writing for the page, and remembers the moment she discovered Shakespeare. Rita Dove is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.

Rita Dove served as the US Poet Laureate for two terms, from 1993 to 1995, and as a special bicentennial consultant to the Library of Congress in 1999. Her third collection of poetry, Thomas and Beulah, won the Pulitzer Prize. She is the only poet ever to receive both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of the Arts, from presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. In 2021, she received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters—the first African American poet in the medal’s history. She teaches at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Dove has also read in the Folger's O.B. Hardison Poetry series four times, and contributed a poem to our 2012 collection Shakespeare’s Sisters: Women Writers Bridge Five Centuries.

From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published January 30, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from With Good Reason, Virginia Humanities, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.