Rita Dove is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, playwright, and essayist. She was the first African American to be appointed Poet Laureate of the United States in 1993. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987 for her collection Thomas and Beulah, which was based on the lives of her grandparents. Her other works include the poetry collections Mother Love (1995) and On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999). She has also written several plays, including The Darker Face of the Earth (1994), and has edited several anthologies.