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• Thomas and Beulah
Rita Dove

Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1986 - 79 pages

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   highly recommended  highly recommended



Fabulous.

Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah (1987, Carnegie Mellon)

Rita Dove won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with Thomas and Beulah, and it's pretty easy to see why. Dove's poetic biography of her ancestors is hyperkinetic, jazz-infused poetry rooted in the Depression, full of life, sass, and vinegar. Nothing is sacred, from motherhood ("She dreams the baby's so small she keeps/misplacing it") to death ("Later he'll say Death stepped right up/to shake his hand, then squeezed/until he sank to his knees."), and some contemporary jabs mixed in ("...Joanna saying/'Mother, we're Afro-Americans now!'/What did she know about Africa?"). Dove has been one of America's shining poetic voices for two decades now, and there's never not a right time to go back and revisit this stunning collection. Perhaps her strongest work. ****


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Fantastic work of poetry

Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah was a fantastic story of two people's journey through life together. It is broken up into two sections: Mandolin, and Canary in Bloom. The first section is written through the eyes of Thomas and the second is from Beulah's perspective. What is fantastic about the way this book is written and organized is that all the poems are connected in sequence and tell a story. Unlike many of the books of poetry that I have read, I did not have to bounce back and forth from this book to my dictionary. Dove's approach to writing poetry is very straight-forward and from the heart. The book reads as if it was a personal memoir from both Thomas and Beulah.

You can relate to the couple and really are drawn in by the imagery and metaphors that Dove uses. Pay attention to the use of wings, salt, fish, canary, feet, heart, music, yellow, flowers, and tears. All contribute in great deal to the depth of each poem. One of my favorite poems from this book is "Courtship, Diligence." In this poem, Beulah is listening to him play the same old mandolin that he has played for years. As she sits she imagines a life where she doesn't have to listen to the same old mandolin and see his same old yellow scarf. Thomas has no idea of her thoughts and is playing as well as he could to make her happy. This really made me think of past relationships and how one person could be very happy and try their best to please the one they love with what they are given. Yet, sometimes no matter how hard one person tries, the other is just simply unhappy. The use of mandolin in this poem is just one example of Dove's imagery. When she is using mandolin, it is representing some feeling or stage in Thomas' life. Whether young and recalling memories, anxious in new love, or old and recovering from a heart attack, the mandolin is an intricate imagery tool. Another fantastic poem is "Variation on Pain." This poem draws back memories of slavery when African Americans were forced to have their ears pierced. The mandolin is again used in this poem, and it draws forth these memories of "two greased strings for each pierced lobe." The third stanza, however, is the most powerful. "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." This is one of the finest examples of the eloquent power that Rita Dove expresses in her writing.

All in all, this is one of the best written works of poetry that I have come across. It is an easy read and as far as books of poetry go, its progressing story makes Thomas and Beulah a real page turner. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is just getting in to reading poetry or even someone who is a poetry connoisseur.


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Wonderful book

Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah is a fantastic story of two people's journey through life together. It is broken up into two sections: Mandolin, and Canary in Bloom. The first section is written through the eyes of Thomas and the second is from Beulah's perspective. What is fantastic about the way this book is written and organized is that all the poems are connected in sequence and tell a story. Unlike many of the books of poetry that I have read, I did not have to bounce back and forth from this book to my dictionary. Dove's approach to writing poetry is very straight-forward and from the heart. The book reads as if it was a personal memoir from both Thomas and Beulah.

You can relate to the couple and really are drawn in by the imagery and metaphors that Dove uses. Pay attention to the use of wings, salt, fish, canary, feet, heart, music, yellow, flowers, and tears. All contribute in great deal to the depth of each poem. One of my favorite poems from this book is "Courtship, Diligence." In this poem, Beulah is listening to him play the same old mandolin that he has played for years. As she sits she imagines a life where she doesn't have to listen to the same old mandolin and see his same old yellow scarf. Thomas has no idea of her thoughts and is playing as well as he could to make her happy. This really made me think of past relationships and how one person could be very happy and try their best to please the one they love with what they are given. Yet, sometimes no matter how hard one person tries, the other is just simply unhappy. The use of mandolin in this poem is just one example of Dove's imagery. When she is using mandolin, it is representing some feeling or stage in Thomas' life. Whether young and recalling memories, anxious in new love, or old and recovering from a heart attack, the mandolin is an intricate imagery tool. Another fantastic poem is "Variation on Pain." This poem draws back memories of slavery when African Americans were forced to have their ears pierced. The mandolin is again used in this poem, and it draws forth these memories of "two greased strings for each pierced lobe." The third stanza, however, is the most powerful. "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." This is one of the finest examples of the eloquent power that Rita Dove expresses in her writing.

All in all, this is one of the best written works of poetry that I have come across. It is an easy read and as far as books of poetry go, its progressing story makes Thomas and Beulah a real page turner. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is just getting in to reading poetry or even someone who is a poetry connoisseur.


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Excellent Read

I really enjoyed this book because of the unconventional way it was written. I really admire Rita Dove's use of a series of short poems to tell a story. After reading Thomas's half of the book, I couldn't wait to read Beulah's half. The different ways that these two experience the same events, is wonderful. Every poem shows so much feeling; it makes the reader feel like part of what is going on. Once it was pointed out to me that certain symbols stay constant through the entire book, I appreciated the way it was written even more. It gives the reader something to grab onto and follow throughout the sets of narrative poems. In the poems, there is not a use of extremely difficult language. Instead, Rita Dove uses very simple language. The use of simpler words helps convey the time the events were taking place and the people whose point of view they are coming from. By this I mean that historically, because of racism, during these time period many African Americans where not even allowed an education. My favorite poem in the book would have to be "The Zeppelin Factory." In the first stanza, I love the use of the term "whale" to describe the air craft. It gives the image of this gigantic, lumbering piece of machinery. To me it also relates the hollow moan of a whale, to the moaning and creaking of the joints of the airship. The feelings of sadness in the first stanza, quickly translates to the second and third stanzas, as the airship floats out of control, and three people lose their lives. In the third stanza, the image of these tiny looking men falling is absolutely horrifying. It made me realize that I can't even imagine witnessing something so terrible. It made me feel sorry for Thomas, because he didn't even want to be part of the airship in the first place, when he had to work on it, and now he had to witness this depressing event. In the fourth stanza, the reader gets a glimpse into Thomas's feelings of the event. He seems to have feelings of guilt because he did not lose his life that day. The last stanza brings you back to now, with Thomas looking at a Goodyear blimp. When reading this poem, I experienced so many feelings, and so many images ran through my head. The poem just gave mea feeling of guilt, much like Thomas had in the fourth stanza of the poem. This one poem is a great example of how heartfelt and emotional, some of the other poems in the book are. I don't want to give the idea that the entire book is depressing. There are many poems that are lighthearted and will bring a smile right to the readers face. Even though these poems are written about events in a different era, the reader can relate many times throughout the book to the feelings and thoughts going through Thomas and Beulah's head. I would recommend this book to anyone. It is a short read that is definitely worth every second spent reading it.


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Different Views

The collected poems of Rita Dove in the book "Thomas and Beulah" are about the lives of 2 people. These poems also tell two sides of a story. Rita Dove is a 1987 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. This book of poems is refreshingly different and I strongly recommend it. This book tells a story with these poems. Everything is in sequence from the 1900's, which is when Thomas and Beulah were born, to the 1960's when Beulah passes on. This book tells the lives of a married black couple back in the day. And is separated by "Mandolin", which is Thomas' side, then "Canary in Bloom", which is Beulah's side of the story.
An example of what both people think about the same situation is in the poem "Courtship" on Thomas' side. This is when he wants to please her and so he "warps the yellow silk still warm from his throat around her shoulders (he mad good money; he could buy another.)" On the other side though of what Beulah is feeling in "Courtship, Diligence" is that all she sees is " a yellow scarf run[ing] though his fingers" she also says that "she'd much prefer a scent in a sky-colored flask" and "not that scarf, bright as butter." With that, you can clearly see how the two people are feeling. Thomas is thinking the yellow scarf is something expensive of his that he can give, and Beulah doesn't like it. You have two sides of a story and what each person is feeling and thinking. Through out the book it is the same from. From Thomas' death and how he was feeling then and what Beulah was thinking and feeling at that time too. This book is like a balance between two people. A balance needed for a marriage and it shows the complexity of two lives that see each other and the world in two different ways.
But there is also a closeness that the reader gets because this book draws them in from the realistic situations. In example, from the poem "Variation on Guilt", Beulah is having a baby and he really wants a baby boy. He's scared to find out what she will have and when the doctor comes out and sees a "smirk" on his face he knows it's a girl and "he doesn't feel a thing" but is "weak with rage." This book is really interesting because you can go into the lives of the married couple and know more about their feelings and emotions than what Thomas and Beulah know about each other. Their relationship and building a family is sometimes complex, simple, yet it is still only a shallow view of their lives. From beginning to end this book always keeps you interested. And with the description of how each person had passed away and their experiences brings the reader a little bit closer to them.


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The poems in this unusual book tell a story, forming a narrative almost like a realistic novel. Read in sequence as intended, they tell of the lives of a married black couple (not unlike Dove's own grandparents) from the early part of the century until their deaths in the 1960s, a period that spans the great migration of blacks from rural south to urban north. But this is merely the social backdrop to the story of a marriage. Two separate sequences offer two views of the couple's lives: the first, "Mandolin," consists of 23 poems giving Thomas's side, and "Canary in Bloom" gives Beulah's in 21 poems. Together they paint a detailed, poetically dense portrait of two lives in all their frailty, dignity and complexity. The collection was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987.


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