Toni Morrison, Resplendent Orchid

Toni Morrison was honored at this year’s National Book Critics Circle award ceremony, and Rita Dove’s remarks capture Morrison’s ongoing legacy beautifully. Dove describes her own joy in discovering The Bluest Eye, the first book in the University of Iowa’s library that spoke to a black American experience outside of the deep south or inner city. The full speech, presented with the 2015 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, is well worth a read; as Dove says, “Like the orchids surrounding her, Toni Morrison has always seemed both rooted in the earth and poised for flight, resplendent and serene.”