Rita Dove represents writers and poets

The Reflector - news

At 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in McCool Hall’s Taylor Auditorium, Mississippi State University’s Institute for the Humanities, an extension of the College of Arts and Sciences, will be hosting Rita Dove as a continuation of the Writer-in-Residence program.
The Institute for the Humanities runs programs on humanities initiatives that involve hosting different events, inviting speakers for the Distinguished Lecture Program and, beginning in 2014, the Writer-in-Residence program.
William Anthony Hay, current director for The Humanities Institute, said he began organizing the lecture series in 2005, shortly after the institute began with Gary Myers. Then, Myers was the director of the newly installed institute and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
“We brought scholars from a range of humanities fields and noted artists and creative writers to campus,” Hay said. “The lecture series became a big draw among students and many community members.”
Following Myers, Dr. Hay took over and began working with the creative writing faculty in the MSU English Department, which was when the Writer-in-Residence series was created.
Now, each public reading for the Writer-in-Residence program doubles as an event in the Distinguished Lecture Series.
Since its beginning, the Writer-in-Residence program has hosted an impressive line-up, alternating poetry and fiction artists including Pulitzer Prize winning fiction writer Robert Olen Butler, Terrance Hayes, a poet who later went on to receive the MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and Dorothy Allison, who is also a Pulitzer Prize winner. Dove, distinguished poet and essayist, is no exception.
In 1987, the Akron, Ohio, native was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her poetry book “Thomas and Beulah,” making her the second African American to ever receive the distinguished award.


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