“The Secret Garden,” Rita Dove, from THE YELLOW HOUSE ON THE CORNER (1980). Rita’s work is often historical, sociological, musical, & political. So much so that we might forget that she also writes a damn good & weird love poem. (If you can’t get good & weird in a poem, chances are you might not be my thing...) Rita was one of my first workshop teachers, during my undergraduate years at UVA. It is remarkable to me now, the way that UVA essentially offered me the equivalent of an MFA while I was just a teenager there; as an undergrad, I was able to take workshops each semester with a dynamite set of teachers: Rita, Charles Wright, & Greg Orr (plus Larry Levis, who taught at VCU at the time. Charles Wright introduced us--he thought we’d hit if off--& I spent a good part of one semester driving down to RVA to hang out with Larry). I took multiple workshops with each, & each of them spent significant time outside of class with a core group of us who moved from workshop to workshop together, several of whom went on to an MFA at Iowa. My UVA classmates who went on to become my Iowa classmates included Mary Szybist, Sam Witt, Heather Derr-Smith, John Casteen, among several others (& many since). Also in there with us, poets who now have beautiful collections, like Rebecca Dunham, Vandana Khanna, Jen Scappettone, & Charlotte Matthews. And poets whose books I would buy the minute they were put on the shelves, like Todd Smith & Tyler Magill. Rita is a skilled teacher, of course. The well she built for us to which I return most often is “How to take Draft One to Draft Two.” She would bring us drafts of her own recent poems, marked up with her notes, & share them with us, & thoughtfully mark up each of our own poems. It gave me a real feel for becoming the kind of merciless devotee to the final draft of a poem that I needed to be. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the way that Rita continues to give back to her students and community. She is famous. Not just poetry-famous, but famous-famous, & has been for some time. Yet, when I asked her if she would be a reader at a charity event a friend & I were holding here in Charlottesville--a bourbon tasting/poetry reading to benefit a local schoolyard garden program--she enthusiastically & immediately agreed to headline. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. Rita read from nearly all her books, curating her reading list to themes of food & drink. We ate delicious food, sipped bourbon--a crowd of around 80 people listening to poetry & raising nearly $5k for the garden.











