THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997               TAG: 9701050105
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                   LENGTH:   48 lines

U.VA. PROFESSOR RITA DOVE IS ONE OF FIVE TO WIN HUMANITIES PRIZE THE PULITZER WINNER SAID SHE'D THOUGHT LIFE WOULD SLOW DOWN - BUT IT'S PICKED UP.

University of Virginia English professor Rita Dove thought things would calm down after her term as U.S. poet laureate ended in 1995.

The Pulitzer Prize winner thought she could return to a ``quiet life of the mind,'' as she put it.

She was wrong. President Clinton has announced that Dove, 43, is one of five recipients of the 1996 Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities.

The award, to be presented in Washington on Wednesday by Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, goes to Americans who have made ``outstanding contributions to the nation's cultural life by bringing the insights of the humanities to wide public audiences,'' according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Other recipients will include the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and TV journalist Bill Moyers.

Last month, Dove received the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, which carries a $250,000 cash award and is one of the largest individual achievement prizes in the world.

``I find it a little overwhelming,'' she said. ``I thought I was through being surprised by things, and it keeps happening.''

Dove, who won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, served as the nation's first black - and youngest - poet laureate from 1993 to 1995.

She traveled widely while in the post, reading her poetry and appearing on television and radio to promote the art form.

Although she has since curtailed her public activities, Dove said she still gets bundles of mail from fans, graduate students wishing to study her work, and school children.

``You can't not answer those,'' she said of the letters from children.

But Dove, who teaches two classes at U.Va. during spring semester, said she has had to learn to say no to requests occasionally so that she can find the time to concentrate on her writing.

She is writing a play that will be performed next fall at the Kennedy Center in Washington and a song cycle to be sung by opera diva Kathleen Battle. The song cycle, set to music by composer John Williams, is scheduled for performances by the National Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

``I have been rigorously turning things down,'' Dove said, ``so I can get to work.''