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Thomas and Beulah
A collection of poetry by Rita Dove.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
16 people are currently reading
1,907 people want to read
About the author
Rita Dove
103Ìýbooks246ÌýfollowersRita 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
May 30, 2020
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.
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.
September 11, 2020
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.
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.
March 8, 2017
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
August 19, 2020
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.
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.
September 11, 2023
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
January 5, 2023
My soul needed some poetry to start off the year. Beautiful, beautiful work.
Read
November 6, 2024She wants to hear wine pouring. She wants to taste change
August 21, 2015
Beautiful.
September 1, 2023
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.
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.
March 6, 2018
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!
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!
February 5, 2025
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.
June 3, 2022
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.
February 6, 2025
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
July 16, 2019
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."
December 20, 2024
read for my African American poetry class
December 20, 2023
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�
September 30, 2015
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.
April 22, 2016
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.
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.
September 15, 2021
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.
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.
March 4, 2016
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.
March 28, 2011
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.
September 6, 2012
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.
May 15, 2013
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.
Want to read
March 13, 2016Many 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.
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.
March 14, 2015
I really enjoyed this wonderful view of the history of the Akron area. The poems about constructing gigantic zeppelins were especially intriguing.
March 4, 2015
(Read in the collection Selected Poems.)
February 14, 2016
I do not feel equipped to critique poetry. This was beautiful though, like the shine in your morning coffee
May 19, 2016
Rita Dove tells her grandparents' story through poetry.
March 26, 2024
Thomas and Beulah is a book of poetry written about the loosely based life of Rita Dove's grandparents. Thomas was her grandfather's name, but Buelah is a made-up name. The book consists of poetry told from two different perspectives. The book's first part is told from Thomas's perspective, and the second half is told from Buelah, the grandmother's perspective. The family is a black family that is living in the Midwest. At one point, a car full of white men drives past them and tries to run them off the road. While doing this, they "halloo past them on Route 231,� trying to scare them.
At this time, the area that they are living in is predominantly white. In one of the poems, Thomas tells Buelah that "we were good, / though we never believed it.� They wanted to believe that they belonged there, but it was hard to see. While describing her life, she remembers "white families on one side and them / on the other, unpacking the same / squeeze bottles of Heinz, the same/waxy beef patties and Salem potato chip bags.� Even though they are black and living in a time of segregation, they are living the same way, eating the same foods having the same ideas, but very different experiences. Overall, the book tells a very interesting story. Even though I would not normally gravitate to a book of poetry, it was very well written with a very cohesive series of events. Even though it is difficult to understand at some points because of the different characters and experiences, it was interesting to read. It is abstract in its words, and at times, I found myself stopping to reread lines in order to understand what it was asking. While reading, it gave us a look into their domesticated life. It was interesting to see a different point of view than what I am used to, as well as two different points of view from a couple living under the same roof. While they are struggling to survive and understand the world around them, many of the moments that they are experiencing are left up to the reader to interpret. The purpose of this book of poems is to allow the reader to come into their lives, but while reading, create their own understanding. All in all, this is a good book of poetry, and I would recommend it to someone who is interested in this time period!
At this time, the area that they are living in is predominantly white. In one of the poems, Thomas tells Buelah that "we were good, / though we never believed it.� They wanted to believe that they belonged there, but it was hard to see. While describing her life, she remembers "white families on one side and them / on the other, unpacking the same / squeeze bottles of Heinz, the same/waxy beef patties and Salem potato chip bags.� Even though they are black and living in a time of segregation, they are living the same way, eating the same foods having the same ideas, but very different experiences. Overall, the book tells a very interesting story. Even though I would not normally gravitate to a book of poetry, it was very well written with a very cohesive series of events. Even though it is difficult to understand at some points because of the different characters and experiences, it was interesting to read. It is abstract in its words, and at times, I found myself stopping to reread lines in order to understand what it was asking. While reading, it gave us a look into their domesticated life. It was interesting to see a different point of view than what I am used to, as well as two different points of view from a couple living under the same roof. While they are struggling to survive and understand the world around them, many of the moments that they are experiencing are left up to the reader to interpret. The purpose of this book of poems is to allow the reader to come into their lives, but while reading, create their own understanding. All in all, this is a good book of poetry, and I would recommend it to someone who is interested in this time period!
January 2, 2023
Unlike other poetry books with individual poems, Rita Dove's "Thomas and Beulah" is a series of connected poems that chronologically detail the lives of the namesake couple � from their marriage, to the birth of their children, to various national or regional events that happen to them. To decode the plotline is simple, given the hints Dove weaves skillfully in throughout, and satisfying. To explore the inner lives of Thomas and Beulah, seeing the world as sieved through the prisms of their lenses, is to understand the possibility baked into the physical minutia around us. The narration is rich, the description memorable.
In "Lightnin' Blues," Dove writes, "The fish / would be flashing like beautiful sequined cigars." In "Recovery," Dove writes, "He was lovely then, a pigeon / whose pulse could be seen when the house / was perfectly still. In the house // the dark rises and whirrs like a loom. / She stands by the davenport, / obedient among her trinkets, / secrets like birdsong in the air." Metaphors of birds and other animals abound; silence and music punctuate the collection, with the quick staccato of grief and despair that lengthen into the unimaginable depths of joy and ecstasy of gospel music and the weddings of children. While reading, I learned more about each character through each poems, simple and subtle touches sufficient to paint the structure of the figure and the colors and strokes of their backgrounds.
This book, like music, rings in my ears with the seamless experience and the strong, continuous impressions of distinct people that it constructed out of the bare bones of plot. There is so little necessary for me to empathize with Thomas and Beulah, to wonder about the faces of their children. This empty space in my mind of what forms the details of their lives is like a sea that is lost to my access. But what I do know of them, I feel as if I know intimately, as if I have been welcomed into select corners of their minds and hearts, walking amidst their bedrooms, the dog-eared pages of their dreams.
In "Lightnin' Blues," Dove writes, "The fish / would be flashing like beautiful sequined cigars." In "Recovery," Dove writes, "He was lovely then, a pigeon / whose pulse could be seen when the house / was perfectly still. In the house // the dark rises and whirrs like a loom. / She stands by the davenport, / obedient among her trinkets, / secrets like birdsong in the air." Metaphors of birds and other animals abound; silence and music punctuate the collection, with the quick staccato of grief and despair that lengthen into the unimaginable depths of joy and ecstasy of gospel music and the weddings of children. While reading, I learned more about each character through each poems, simple and subtle touches sufficient to paint the structure of the figure and the colors and strokes of their backgrounds.
This book, like music, rings in my ears with the seamless experience and the strong, continuous impressions of distinct people that it constructed out of the bare bones of plot. There is so little necessary for me to empathize with Thomas and Beulah, to wonder about the faces of their children. This empty space in my mind of what forms the details of their lives is like a sea that is lost to my access. But what I do know of them, I feel as if I know intimately, as if I have been welcomed into select corners of their minds and hearts, walking amidst their bedrooms, the dog-eared pages of their dreams.
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