Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rita Dove will read from her own works at 4 p.m., Monday, April 10, in the Muelder Reading Room, Seymour Library, Knox College. Dove's reading is part of a year-long series of events in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Knox's Program in Creative Writing.

The reading is free and open to the public.

Dove served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection "Thomas and Beulah." The author of numerous books, most recently "Sonata Mulattica" in 2009 and a volume of collected poems published in 2016, she also edited the 2011 edition of "The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry."

Dove's 1996 drama "The Darker Face of the Earth" premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as the Royal National Theatre in London. Her 1998 song cycle "Seven for Luck" was set to music by John Williams and performed by the Boston Symphony.

Among Dove's many honors are the 2011 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, and the 1996 National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton. She has received 25 honorary doctorates, including Knox College in 1989 and most recently, Yale University. She is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Rita Dove at Knox College

"At Knox College you have received a top­-notch liberal education," Rita Dove said in her commencement address at Knox College on June 3, 1989.

"You have not only been admirably trained in your individual fields," she told graduating seniors, "but you have received a solid core of general studies geared to help you cope with the boundless changes that our accelerating civilization will confound you with."

For those who graduate from college, Dove said, there's a strong temptation to "allow our world to shrink to the perimeters of our jobs." She urged graduates to continue challenging themselves and "avoid being narrowed down to a mere functionary of your professional specialization."