For her seventh book of verse, American poet Rita Dove juxtaposed the personal and the political. This collection, published in 1999, largely chronicles a woman’s search for self-knowledge and fulfillment. However, this unique, personal journey is prefaced by a story in verse of a family whose youngest member is also in search of his place in the cosmos. And interwoven within the collection are poetic reflections on events leading up to Rosa Parks’ historic act of 1955. Ms. Parks, an African-American seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a Caucasian male on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, serves as the inspiration for the title of Dove’s work; an end-note in the book indicates that Dove and her daughter indeed rode on

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Published 09 February 2004

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "On the Bus with Rosa Parks". The Literary Encyclopedia. 9 February 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12733, accessed 9 February 2010.]