Thomas and Beulah

Thomas and Beulah
AuthorRita Dove
Cover artistRay A. Dove
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry
PublisherCarnegie Mellon University Press
Publication date
1986
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages80 pp.
ISBN0-88748-021-7 (Paperback)
OCLC24955131
811/.54 20
LC ClassPS3554.O884 T47 1986
Preceded byFifth Sunday 
Followed byGrace Notes 

Thomas and Beulah is a book of poems by American poet Rita Dove that tells the semi-fictionalized chronological story of her maternal grandparents during the Great Migration,[1] the focus being on her grandfather (Thomas, his name in the book as well as in real life) in the first half and her grandmother (named Beulah in the book, although her real name was Georgianna) in the second.[citation needed] It won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for poetry,[2] making Dove the second African American to win the award after Gwendolyn Brooks won in 1950.[3]

Contents

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I. Mandolin

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  • The Event[a]
  • Variation on Pain[a]
  • Jiving[a]
  • Straw Hat[b]
  • Courtship[a]
  • Refrain[a]
  • Variation on Guilt[a]
  • Nothing Down[c]
  • The Zeppelin Factory[a]
  • Under the Viaduct, 1932[b]
  • Lightnin' Blues[d]
  • Compendium[a]
  • Definition in the Face of Unnamed Fury[a]
  • Aircraft[e]
  • Aurora Borealis[a]
  • Variation on Gaining a Son
  • One Volume Missing[b]
  • The Charm[a]
  • Gospel[f]
  • Roast Possum[b]
  • The Stroke[a]
  • The Satisfaction Coal Company[d]
  • Thomas at the Wheel[c]

II. Canary in Bloom

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  • Taking in Wash[g]
  • Magic[h]
  • Courtship, Diligence[i]
  • Promises
  • Dusting[j][k][l]
  • A Hill of Beans[m]
  • Weathering Out[n]
  • Motherhood
  • Anniversary
  • The House on Bishop Street
  • Daystar[n]
  • Obedience
  • The Great Palaces of Versailles[j]
  • Pomade[j][k]
  • Headdress
  • Sunday Greens[h]
  • Recovery
  • Nightmare
  • Wingfoot Lake[m]
  • Company
  • The Oriental Ballerina[i][j]

III. Chronology

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Critical Engagement

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Malin Pereira has argued that one of the central functions of Thomas and Beulah is to redefine what "home" means in a cosmopolitan context, such as the kind in which many African Americans found themselves after the Great Migration.[4]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Also featured in a chapbook titled Mandolin in Ohio Review, 28
  2. ^ a b c d Also featured in Callaloo.
  3. ^ a b Also featured in The Reaper.
  4. ^ a b Also featured in Paris Review.
  5. ^ Also featured in CutBank.
  6. ^ Also featured in Georgia Review.
  7. ^ Also featured in Ploughshares.
  8. ^ a b Also shared in Nimrod International Journal of Poetry & Prose
  9. ^ a b Also featured in New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly.
  10. ^ a b c d Also featured in New American Poets of the Eighties, Wampeter Press, 1984
  11. ^ a b Also featured in Poetry.
  12. ^ Also featured in Pushcart Prize: VII, Pushcart Press, 1984, Museum, Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1983, and The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, 1985.
  13. ^ a b Also featured in The Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, University Press of New England, 1985
  14. ^ a b Also featured in Agni Review.

References

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  1. ^ Righelato, Pat (2006). Understanding Rita Dove. Columbia: University of South Carolina press. p. 70. ISBN 9781570036378.
  2. ^ "Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah: Breaking down barriers and keeping stories alive". Iowa Public Radio.
  3. ^ Schneider, Steven; Dove, Rita (1989). "Coming Home: An Interview with Rita Dove". The Iowa Review. 19 (3): 112–123.
  4. ^ Pereira, Malin (2003). Rita Dove's cosmopolitanism. Urbana: University of Illinois. pp. 91–115. ISBN 0252028376.
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