Celebration of Poets Laureate featuring Rita Dove, Emilia (Mia) Watka, and Richard Hague

In celebration of Rita Dove's original poem created for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's performance American Voices, join Rita Dove and Richard Hague as they discuss their journeys as Poets Laureate. Moderated by 2025-2026 Cincinnati Youth Poet Laureate, Emilia (Mia) Watka. Signing to follow.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

About Rita Dove

Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate, is the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her recent works include Playlist for the Apocalypse, Sonata Mulattica, and the National Book Award-shortlisted Collected Poems: 1974-2004. In 2021 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2023 she received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lives in Charlottesville, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia.

About Richard Hague

Richard Hague is editor or author of 23 volumes, most recently the prose collection Earnest Occupations: Teaching, Writing, Gardening, & Other Local Work (Bottom Dog Press, 2018) and the poetry collection Continued Cases (Dos Madres Press, 2023). During The Recent Extinctions: New & Selected Poems 1984-2012 was winner of the 2012 Weatherford Award in Poetry. Alive in Hard Country won the 2003 Appalachian Writers Association’s Poetry Book of the Year, and Milltown Natural: Essays & Stories from a Life, was a National Book Award nominee. He is 2025-27 Poet Laureate of Cincinnati & the Mercantile Library.