Thomas and Beulah

by Rita Dove

A collection of poetry by Rita Dove.

Genres: Poetry, African American, Fiction, School, Race, Womens, Read For School

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and musician, lives in Charlottesville, where she is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Reviews

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Road Trip 2020

Current location: Ohio

ride joy until
it cracks like an egg,
make sorrow
seethe and whisper

When my son started college, he was dating the same girl he'd been dating since his sophomore year of high school.

This raised the eyebrows of our more conservative family members and at a summer gathering before his first semester of college, one of the most old school of them all declared (with a big lipsticked smile), “Well, he's been dating her long enough by now, shouldn't we be hearing wedding bells soon?”

I grumbled audibly over my Moscow mule: Over my dead body.

It wasn't that the high school sweetheart wasn't an intelligent and stunning creature. She was. It was just that they were both 18 years old at the time and they hadn't gone to college or traveled the world or had sex with strangers on a beach in Thailand yet.

And, as it turns out, scientists are finally backing up my intuition. . . our frontal lobes aren't fully developed until our mid-20s. That person who gave us the hots at the age of 15 in high school AIN'T NECESSARILY SUPPOSED TO BE OUR MARRIAGE PARTNERS FOR LIFE, Y'ALL.

But try telling that to a young couple in 1920s Ohio. If you were a good girl back then. . . you participated in heavy petting with a man once, he was yours for life, unless you wanted to lose your good name.

If you were Thomas and Beulah, circa 1924, and you'd had a couple of unchaperoned dates in the car, you were going to the chapel and you were going to get married. Poor Thomas, even before he made it down the aisle, he was thinking: what was he doing, selling all for a song?

Poor Beulah, even before she made it down the aisle, she was already lamenting his unwanted touch: Not his hands, cool as dimes.

And yet:

Beneath the airborne bouquet
was a meadow of virgins
urging Be water, be light.
A deep breath, and she plunged
through sunbeams and kisses,
rice drumming
the both of them blind.

Rice drumming the both of them blind?

Oh, Ms. Dove. Meet your newest follower.

No wonder this poetry collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987. Rita Dove is a freaking genius.

Later that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour—where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably shouldn’t admit to it: I do believe this is the first time I ever enjoyed poetry. No harp played. No angels sang. But as I was reading, flowers kept blooming inside me, so furtive and beautiful the images were. I loved this elusive, intimate flash of a book.

As close to prose as I could ever hope for, casting flourishes light as air, the book grabbed my full attention with its genuine people at the forefront, the dusty afternoon sunshine of their couple’s story and the muddy truths that age reveal. This little book is a thing of beauty.

Laid down in delicate slices and playful with the timeline, Thomas and Beulah’s domestic subtleties caught me unawares. They presented me with the very essence of what I love most in many favorite novels yet rewrote the rules on me.

This is not an everyday affair.

I will read Rita Dove again.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to dock a star for the time being because I'm legitimately baffled as to why this ended with "The Oriental Ballerina". This was really great—I read it twice back to back—but the purpose of "The Oriental Ballerina" continues to elude me. Especially as a closing number. But so many moments of stunning, quiet beauty that I'll probably up this to a full 5 eventually

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was deliciously well-done; Dove is witty and touching and lyrically adept. I found the two halves so brilliantly complementary that I couldn't easily say that I preferred one to the other; in both, she dissects disappointment so skillfully, so lovingly.* It's striking how artfully she constructs the two figures as mirrored, both pigeonholed into the roles society has fashioned for them--Thomas haunted by the loss of his first love (platonic or otherwise) and Beulah struggling against the repression of her potential--while also drawing out their differences.

My favorite poems: "Compendium," "Aircraft," "Aurora Borealis," and "The Stroke" from "Mandolin"; and "Promises," "Motherhood," "Daystar," "Pomade," and "Company" from "Canary in Bloom."


*Although, if pressed, I would probably opt for Beulah's.

[Melblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im not sure what to do with myself or how to explain how this book made me feel. I am stricken by its genius work with narrative how it expands, obscures, and illuminates. Its a work that required active participation on my end, flipping pages back and forth, noting dates, seeing similarities and building the larger world in which these two existed parallel and together. I am also taken by how each section is distinct not only by the way it adds to the larger story but all the other underlying bits and pieces of emotion, everyone is their full self individually and an even different kaleidoscope when together. I felt such a deep deep sadness towards the ends of each sections like i was being drawn forward unto a cliff that never drops me because we end the book again with their times, with how these people lived. Man. Genius genius

[Tonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

My soul needed some poetry to start off the year. Beautiful, beautiful work.

[Sandra Del Rio]

She wants to hear wine pouring. She wants to taste change

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shoot. Jeannine told me I should read this, given the current trajectory of my thesis, and she wasn't wrong. These poems are elegant imaginings of Dove's family history rendered in such an understated way. Offering the two halves of the story of Thomas and Beulah, the book paints such a stark picture of Depression-era and WWII family life. I'm going to have to work my way back through this again.

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gospel

Swim low so I
can step inside--
a humming ship of voices
big with all

the wrongs done
done them.
No sound this generous
could fail:

ride joy until
it cracks like an egg,
make sorrow
seethe and whisper.

From a fortress
of animal misery
soars the chill voice
of the tenor, enraptured

with sacrifice.
What do I see,
he complains, notes
brightly rising

towards a sky
blank with promise.
Yet how healthy
the single contralto

settling deeper
into her watery furs!
Carry me home,
she cajoles, bearing

down. Candelabras
brim. But he slips
through God's net and swims
heavenward, warbling.

Rita Dove's Pulitzer Prize winning collection Thomas and Beulah is a stark, heartbreaking portrayal of a couple who grow apart as the years progress. Presented in two sections, one dominated by Thomas ("Mandolin") and the other Beaulah ("Canary in Bloom"), Dove weaves a portrait with depth from poetic shards and fragments. While there is some ambiguity regarding specific incidents (how and why did Lem drown exactly?), the overall emotional arch is clear. Finishing with "The Oriental Ballerina," the poetry cycle drills down and mines the darkest shades of life and death. Over the course of this collection, I came to sympathize with this aging couple whose lives, like so many others, were more potential than lived.

Daystar

She wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.

So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children's naps.

Sometimes there were things to watch--
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she stared until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she'd see only her own vivid blood.

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,
building a palace. Later
that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour--where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

[Arnau Bertran Manyé]

Through the story of her maternal grandparents, Rita Dove narrates with the use of a beautiful poetic prose, how his grandfather met her grandmother and settled for good.

With the use of a chronological, sequential order, each part describes a different journey and vocation of the dazzling beginning Thomas had when moving to another American state for a better life. In it, he found work, Beulah, the years of America’s Great Depression, and finally death. Together with her spouse, Dove enlists the couple’s generational history in a cheerful and lively manner, despite the great difficulties her family went through in the early years.

The way Rita Dove writes poetry is somehow very unknown to me; I never explored the art of storytelling with the use of distinct poems, all interchangeably connected to one another, and mirroring an account of historical events through the eyes of two personages buried in the past. Yet, the author is predisposed to tell the story of her family in the most original way, and delights her readers with a unique writing technique that persuades you to continue reading until the very end.

Thank you.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is a very good collection of poetry. A two part narrative, one detailing the life of Thomas and the other of Beulah's. Their lives together, their shared moments exposed in different perspectives, the more personal, contemplative moments between the narrator and the reader. However, and this is entirely my fault, I didn't love it because I don't enjoy poetry. I find it difficult to connect to and leave feeling cold or touched by a few lines at best. I read the collection on its own first and left a little lost. I found a documentary on YouTube with Dove detailing the lives of her grandparents and explaining the poems before she read them. I needed the historical and personal context to understand and enjoy her work. I also think I like poetry more read aloud. A new discovery! Overall, I'm glad I gave it a chance and I'm excited to hear her speak at my graduation!

[Siani-Simone Ammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am actually quite stunned by the weight of the words within in this book. how it transforms & reorders & recolors memories so well. i have always been contemplating the lies of nostalgia versus the meaning of memory since the vs episode with natalie diaz & i think this book does not simply contemplate these questions, but also answers them. love the way motifs carry over, the music, the water, the hat, the scarf, the watermelon, the rice, the salt, the veil, and the canary. love how tenderness itself (as well as routine) can represent it's own slow violence. the gendered politics of racism. just stunned !!! I took too many. i can't wait to discuss this in class tomorrow. quite excited.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is another instance of me not quite getting it. The language was pleasing, but my brain has trouble with poetry and I frequently don't understand what the author is saying. I think I am just a bit too literal.

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slowly won me over, less for individual poems but rather the way they work together.

[Phil J · Rating 4 out of 5]

About 3/4 of this book described moments from the lives of Thomas and Beulah in beautiful, symbolic verse. The other 1/4 was a little beyond me. I might get more out of it if I had done more college-level work in reading poetry. Some of my favorites include "The Event" and "One Volume Missing."

[Jessica Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an important and moving book, we are lucky Dove wrote this. Something notable to me is that these poems are able to be read independent of the book as a whole. A small and obvious point I know, but something vital to consider. I mean, that’s part of where the greatness exists in poetry and in art forms-that they can be independent from a larger piece, but also fit into a container or book. I’m thinking a lot about how stories arc and change as they exist near or with one another, and how they work independently. One of my favorite poems “Dusting” is a wonderful illustration of her economical language and of the poignancy of her stories in tandem with exceptional metaphors. Dove does something spectacular here too in that she teaches the reader how to read the poems, how to handle the stories. This is particularly interesting when thinking about how stories work versus telling, and how to grasp a reader with a personal story that is political and speaks to the experiences of so many in society. This slow and artful concoction of a story that unfolds within poems, particularly in the latter half of “Canary in Bloom” stand out to me as particularly lucid and clear, which make the book and the telling of the stories read as even more poignant and controlled, but still active in modes of discovery. I admire this book for so so many reasons, and again, think how lucky we are to have it to return to particularly at this moment in society.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start off, I like the way this book feels in my hands. The cover is a pleasing texture and the thin paperback poetry books are always flexible and light on the hands. I appreciate that this book is based in Akron, Ohio. Can't say that about many of the Pulitzer-prize winners! This is not my favorite collection of poetry, nor does it contain any of my favorite poems. However, there is something endearing and very normal about the poetry topics. The fact that the normal stories of Akronites are being told is something remarkable in and of itself. Thomas and Beulah, "were good, / though [they] never believed it" (74). A very unromantic relationship, but a real one, is unfolded in the pages of this book, with plenty of canaries and quite a few mandolins for good measure.

[D.A. Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not my first reading and it won't be my last. Thomas and Beulah is a great love letter from the poet to her grandparents, and whether or not the stories contained are exact they provide the kind of truth that only a poet can give.

Splitting the collection into two strong Points of View, shows art dealing with opposites, male/female, light/dark, black/white -- the poems start in a place that feel deeply personal. But the great poems that start with the personal, by being specific touch on something revealing about their culture and the history. This collection has much to teach about the Northern Migration and the effects of race, economics, labor and segregation on the psyche. Worth multiple reads.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars. Her poems were a little difficult for me to understand. The book is divided into two sections. The first section is called Mandolin and the second is Canary in Bloom. The first section, “Mandolin,” consists of twenty-three poems from Grandfather Thomas’s point of view, and the second section, “Canary in Bloom,” consists of twenty-one poems from Grandmother Beulah's point-of-view. (whose real name was Georgianna)

In order for these poems to make sense to the reader, you have to read them in sequence. the back of the book has a chronology page that helps the reader follow the timeline of the events that took place in their lives from the time they were born. to the time they met up until their death.

[rina · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow beautiful … i very rarely finish poetry collections — i tend to like to pick out favorites and leave the rest but all of this was so amazing!! technically i Did have to read the entire thing for a class … technically … technically … was still amazing. rita dove is a masterrrr of her craft this style is probably one of my absolute favorites for poetry!! so stripped down to the barebones of language but still amazing and striking and like peeling off scabs… opening old wounds … a welcome pain! yesss

[Angie Orlando · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful story about a man and woman, told in both voices, who marry in Akron, Ohio 1920's. This book follows the black migration northward and ends up in my own area. But this is a time period and culture so unlike mine. I had trouble understanding some of the poems, although I highly appreciate Dove's imagery and lyrical quality. It is helpful to read the timeline at the end of the book and then re-read the poems.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in about two hours and immediately turned back to the first page and started reading again, slower this time, so I could savor the imagery and beauty in the simplistic details. This is the far superior precursor to the modern novel in verse. It is a story woven by poetry rather than a story forced into poetic form. No wonder it won the Pulitzer.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rita Dove's haunting and beautiful book Thomas and Beulah won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and I can see why. These very layered, very distant, yet somehow extremely emotional poems trace the life of Thomas and Beulah, the two characters who are loosely based on Rita Dove's grandparents. I would like to get to know them better, so I will be reading this one again someday.

[Rita]

Many like this book of poems loosely about lives of maternal grandparents.

Gabrielle Foreman in 'Miss Puppet Lady', WRB March 1993 review of novel of childhood 'Through the Ivory Gate ' is not positive about this book, tho I would probably find it interesting to read. It seems from Wikipedia that she has not written any more novels, but plenty of poetry, plays etc.

[Ann Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this wonderful view of the history of the Akron area. The poems about constructing gigantic zeppelins were especially intriguing.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Read in the collection Selected Poems.)

[John Molina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not feel equipped to critique poetry. This was beautiful though, like the shine in your morning coffee

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rita Dove tells her grandparents' story through poetry.

[Emilie Guan · Rating 5 out of 5]

destroyed me

“There was a needle
In his head but nothing
Fit through it. Sound quivered
Like a rope stretched clear
To land, tensed and brimming,
A man gurgling air”