The Pulitzer prize winner and former US poet laureate, Rita Dove, will give the Poetry Society’s annual lecture next month. Dove’s lecture, ‘How Does a Shadow Shine? Poetry, Music & the Underside of History’, will be given in London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh from 13-23 October.

Dove’s visit has been facilitated by Writing West Midlands and Birmingham literature festival, and her tour begins in Birmingham, with a reading at the Library of Birmingham on 9 October.

She was the first African American US poet laureate, and the youngest, serving from 1993-95. She has received the 2011 National Medal of Arts from President Obama and the 1996 National Humanities Medal from President Clinton, making her the only poet to have received both presidential medals. She is currently Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Coinciding with Black History Month, the lecture will explore how poetry can pull lives from the shadows.

Dove will give her lecture at King’s College London, on 13 October; the University of Liverpool,  on 20 October; Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts on 22 October; and the Department of English literature, University of Edinburgh, hosted by the Scottish Poetry Library, on 23 October. More details

PHOTOGRAPH: SPARK MEDIA