As a college student, Rita Dove held a Fulbright Scholarship in Germany. She has published numerous poetry collections, and her play The Darker Face of the Earth had its world premiere in 1996 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was subsequently produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Royal National Theatre in London. Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She has received many literary honors, among them the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library contains rare and first editions of her published work.