Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her book Thomas and Beulah. Other collections of poetry include American Smooth, Mother Love, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, Grace Notes and Selected Poems. She has served as U.S. Poet Laureate, as Special Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress Bicentennial and as Poet Laureate of Virginia. Her poetry book, Sonata Mulattica, is forthcoming in April 2009. She is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.