The White House announced the recipients of the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medals on February 10th. Poet Rita Dove was the leading literary figure among the seven who will receive the National Medal of Arts, joining actor Al Pacino, singer Mel Tillis, painter Will Barnet, sculptor Martin Puryear, pianist André Watts, and creative arts patron Emily Rauh Pulitzer.

President Obama will present the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medals at a White House to the above individuals at a ceremony on Monday, Feb. 13, streaming live at 1:45pm eastern.

Rita Dove served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to '95. Dove, born in 1952 in Ohio, received an MFA from the University of Iowa and published her first poetry collection in 1980. She won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for the collection "Thomas and Beulah." She teaches at the University of Virginia; her many accolades include a National Humanities Medal.

from the  La Times

Rita Dove's time in Iowa City has been documented in our City of Lit app and City of Lit mobile website, where  we've mapped locations where Dove lived and worked in town, as well as included photos of her time as a grauduate student in the Iowa Writers' Workshop (images graciously provided by Fred Viebahn).