Akron-born poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove will be the special guest of Project Learn of Summit County’s Night of Illumination on Oct. 16 in the Akron Civic Theatre.
Dove, who has been poet laureate both of the U.S. and of Virginia, will talk about her life, read from her work and discuss the importance of education and literacy. Proceeds from the event will benefit Project Learn, which works with adults who cannot read and are in need of basic adult education services.
Now Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Dove is the author of nine collections of poetry, a novel, essays, a play, a book of short stories and a song cycle. Nor does that sufficiently suggest her accomplishments. According to her official biography, “she enjoys playing the viola da gamba, a 17th-century string instrument related to the cello, her classical voice training and — together with her husband (writer Fred Viebahn) — ballroom dancing and Argentinian tango.”
Dove is a graduate of Buchtel High School and Miami University, and has a master of fine arts from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Tickets for the event are $20 to $75. For more information and tickets, go to www.akroncivic.com.
— Rich Heldenfels