U.VA. ENGLISH PROFESSOR RITA DOVE TO RECEIVE
	SECOND MAJOR HUMANITIES AWARD IN A MONTH

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan. 4 -- Rita Dove, Commonwealth
Professor of English at the University of Virginia, has been chosen
by President Clinton to receive a 1996 Charles Frankel Prize for
leadership in the humanities.
	The award, the government's highest honor for writers and
scholars, will be presented to the former U.S. Poet Laureate at a
Jan. 9 ceremony, followed by a dinner at the White House.
	Dove is one of five honorees to be saluted for contributions
to public understanding of the humanities and for a lifetime of
achievements.  The Frankel Prizes, carrying cash awards of $5,000,
also will be awarded to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; political
philosopher Daniel Kemmis, director of the Center for the Rocky
Mountain West; literature scholar Arturo Madrid, founding president
of the Tomas Rivera Center at Trinity University in San Antonio; and
journalist Bill Moyers.
	The award is the second major humanities honor for Dove in
less than a month.  In December she received a 1996 Heinz Award, one
of the largest individual achievement prizes in the world.  The
awards, annual prizes of $250,000 each, were created by
philanthropist Teresa Heinz to celebrate the power of the individual
in American society.
	These recognitions are only the latest in Dove's career.  In
1970 she participated in her first award ceremony at the White House
when she, one of the top 100 high school graduates in the United
States that year, was honored as a Presidential Scholar.  Fulbright
and Guggenheim fellowships followed as well as several literary
awards, and in 1987, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry book
"Thomas and Beulah," the moving story of an African-American
couple's life during the earlier part of our century.  From 1993 to
1995 Dove served as poet laureate of the United States; she was the
first African-American (and the youngest poet ever) to occupy that
prestigious position.  Dove also counts among her numerous
distinctions Glamour Magazine's "Woman of the Year" award, the
NAACP's "Great American Artist" award and 12 honorary doctorates.
	Besides her six poetry books, Rita Dove has also published a
novel, a book of essays and, recently, a play "The Darker Face of
the Earth."  This slave drama received standing ovations and rave
reviews at its world premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
last summer; it is now bound for Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey
and for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
	Currently Dove is working on a song cycle for soprano
Kathleen Battle.  Battle is scheduled to perform these songs -- set
to the music by composer John Williams -- with the National Symphony
Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in October, while the New York
Philharmonic is planning additional performances for January 1998 at
Lincoln Center.
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January 3, 1997
	For additional information, contact the Public Information
Office at the National Endowment for the Humanities, (202) 606-8446,
or Robert Brickhouse at the University of Virginia's News Services,
(804) 924-7116.  For interviews Rita Dove may be reached at (804)
924-6618.  Television reporters should call U.Va.'s TV News Office
at (804) 924-7550.