Dove became the first African-American, as well as the youngest person, to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate when she was appointed by President Clinton in 1993. When her term expires this later this month, former UB professor Robert Hass will assume the post. She has been awarded 10 honorary degrees during her career and was named one of 10 "Outstanding Women of the Year" in 1993 by Glamour magazine.

Love brought her to poetry, Dove explained, and it fills her poems: Love of the English language, love of her grandparents, love of mythology and love for her husband and child. Dove's poetry has a strong storytelling element, and it is not metered as conventional poetry might be. "To read me correctly," said Dove at one point, "requires a strong rhythm and blues syncopation."

Dove read a number of excerpts from her 1987 anthology "Thomas and Beulah," a collection of poems based loosely on the lives of her grandparents, that earned Dove the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. "I say the poems are based loosely," she explained, "because I changed some things-mostly facts. See, you can change things like the color of a scarf or a name, but you can't change the emotional truth."

Poetry writing is very much like work to Dove. It is a daily activity in her schedule and, she explained, it is part of her continuing education. "The great part of the writing is the discovery," she said. "If I don't come away knowing something I didn't know before, then I feel I failed."

"The Great Palaces of Versailles" captures her grandmother daydreaming, as she pressed alterations in an Ohio dress shop, about a trip to Paris she would never make. Later, Dove explained that when she finally made it to Paris herself, "it was like I was seeing it through my grandmother's eyes."

"Better not look an island woman in the eye, unless you like to feel unnecessary..." declared Dove, describing the strong-willed women from the West Indies encountered on the streets of Paris in the poem, "Island Woman."

Dove would not choose a favorite among her poems, explaining that "they are all like my children, and you shouldn't have favorites." Nor could she recall exactly when she began reading poetry. "The earliest poems I remember were the times my mother would run around the kitchen preparing a meal while quoting Lady MacBeth."

An audience member sought to have Dove reveal the true meaning of some of the symbolism in her poetry, asking her to explain who the "seal men" were in her poem "Adolescence Two," which describes a little girl's adventures in her dreams. Dove confessed, "For years I was terrified that someone would ask me that," explaining that she really intended no symbolism in the poem, only that she was trying to "recreate that strange, almost hallucinogenic time of adolescence."

But she added, "One day, a few years after it was published, a woman approached me after a reading and congratulated me on the deep symbolism of the seal men." It seems that some ancient civilizations regarded "seals" as symbols for virginity. "I could have kissed her," Dove exclaimed.

A native of Akron, Ohio, Dove earned her undergraduate degree from Oxford, Ohio and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.

Her visit to UB was co-sponsored by the Just Buffalo Literary Center, Inc. Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello pronounced the day "Rita Dove Day in Buffalo." President William Greiner read the mayoral proclamation, presenting it to Dove before she began her reading.

Although she is the nation's poet, Dove shied away from matters political, except to pitch for protection of the arts in the federal budget.

"We don't have to apologize for art; we need it," declared Dove, who also said she found President and Mrs. Clinton to be "genuine and absolutely natural people, which is probably why the Washington media find them so baffling."