Rita Dove is an award-winning poet, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. She has published numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, plays, and essays. She is currently Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn. Her book Collected Poems 1974 -- 2004 was longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry.