In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress, making her the youngest person—and the first African-American—to receive this honor. She held the position for two years. She was reappointed Special Consultant in Poetry for 2000, the Library of Congress's bicentennial year, and in 2004 Virginia Gov. Mark Warner appointed her Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia, a two-year position. "Thomas and Beulah," a collection of interrelated poems loosely based on her grandparents’ lives, earned her the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. Her recent work is “Collected Poems: 1974-2004” (Norton).
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