Thomas and Beulah is a book of poems by American poet Rita Dove that tells the semi-fictionalized chronological story of her maternal grandparents during the Great Migration, the focus being on her grandfather (Thomas, his name in the book as well as in real life) in the first half and her grandmother (named Beulah in the book, although her real name was Georgianna) in the second. It won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, making Dove the second African American to win the award after Gwendolyn Brooks won in 1950.

Contents

I. Mandolin

II. Canary in Bloom

III. Chronology

Critical Engagement

Malin Pereira has argued that one of the central functions of Thomas and Beulah is to redefine what "home" means in a cosmopolitan context, such as the kind in which many African Americans found themselves after the Great Migration.