Lucille Clifton Books

Lucille Clifton has been writing poetry since the 60s. Her poems have ranged from the monumental to the everyday, but her progression as a poet has been unfettered. She is a national treasure. There are some very interesting poems in this volume.

"September Song" is bound to draw interest, 7 poems marking the days from the September 11th terrorist attack. Clifton's treatment is unflappable. She dares us to question everything about the experience, from our fears to our subsequent reactions. She is more than unabashedly political in her views, she is also honest.

Other poems like "on dying" do recall Dickinson. The poem gives you a sense of resolution, not of loss. It's a beautiful treatment that ties in well with other poems about the mortality of being diagnosed with cancer and the surreal experience of being outside your own body.

And Clifton has never shied from treatments of race either. But she goes deeper than just race and looks at the concepts of division.

"the river between us" is used to juxtapose the confident self reliant man who fishes the river and the god-fearing man who goes to the river seeking salvation and calling for help from above. It's a powerful statement and a testament to her range and skill.

If minimalism is your benchmark for exceptional poetry, few have a better mastery than Lucille Clifton.

At times this seems like several books of poetry back to back. There are some sequences that require you to change gears very quickly.

Still this is a wonderful book of poetry, which is highly recommended.

Enjoy.

Once again, Lucille Cliftton testifies magnificently to the fullness of a life lived with all it's heartaches, triumphs and lasting understanding.

In plaintive and beautifully sparse and simple language she transports the reader into her world with all its soulfulness and quiet reflection. Wonderful.

"Mercy" is an exquisite, transcendent collection of poetry. Lucille Clifton has always written sophisticated, fearless poems that reveal the omnipresent terrors and singular triumphs of human existence. These poems are as clear, direct and beautiful as ever Clifton has written; they speak again and again to the pain that tears open our lives -- and the grace of love that can save us a little, maybe even enough.

Blessing the Boats, New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, Lucille Clifton, BOA, Ltd., Rochester, NY 2000), 132 pp, offers a often dreamy whirl through nuances of life to include lustful desires of the sex, battles with breast cancer, death of a loved one, menopause, oppression and more. Her poems are feminine in perspective, but probably universally applauded. She doesn't insults. They read like surreal episodes from a dream, having fleeting scenes change in time and place in nanosecond flashes. Words. Words are bended and hammered into concepts seen alien, yet fitting. For example, how does one "hear the bright train eye...?" What the hell is the bright train eye? But in the context of " birthday 1999," not only does it fit, it's clear and above all, enlightening. The same cannot be said for all of Clifton poems. So of them includes miscues that makes them not so clear.

Boats is partitioned into four parts, New Poems (2000), From Guilty (1991), From the Book of Light (1993) and From the Terrible Stories (1996).

new poems:
In "moonchild," the author, deals with child sex abuse by a father, but rather than make the reader feel the pain, and anguish towards men, instead she attempts to share she has learned to cope with the memory to minimize, rather than maximize continued pain and suffering.

"the photograph: a lynching," in her poem on "a picture is worth a thousand words," she proves the same can be said for her poem. She describes the stark history of a lynching, and focuses on the stunned witness of the eyes of the children. She questions the whether other kids, black and white, upon seeing the photograph will be taught accurately what happened there or will the story be misinterpreted or discarded altogether.

"jasper texas 1998 for j. byrd" is as plain as it is powerful. The narrator asks, who's inhuman, the dragged or the draggers, clearly knowing the answer -- for the victim was dragged to death, involuntarily. But, so was Rodney King's beating, although some believed that he was in control throughout the ordeal. She concludes that deposits that if singing, "We Shall Overcome" is all we going to do about oppression, then we can expect more of the same.

In "alabama 9/15/63," the narrator feels so much for the 4 little black girls will go to heaven, but even that vision is obscured by the memory of a church bombing them to smithereens.

"Praise song," illustrates the warmth of unconditional love, the idea of welcoming a family member back home against their frailties, even when they appear to have lost their mind.

from quilting:
In "birth of language," we see the proverbial Adam shuddering to whisper, "Eve," which is excellent, loaded imagery, given what would be come the most dynamic relationship known to man. His shuddering was fitting.

"sleeping beauty" is funny and typical of the male-female dynamic - she comes out of a sleep and the first thing she notices is man, "and she blamed him."

book of light:
"women you are accustomed to," Clifton extols egalitarian gender values: she wants to be the women her man has been accustomed to, because misses his "dancing tongue."

"song at midnight," the poet depicts the loneliness of an unattractive woman, as she extols, love this woman who needs love because if the Black man doesn't, who else will?

"the earth is a living thing," personifies earth as a "black and living thing...in its kinky hair."

There are a series of poems that use the metaphor of "superman" and "clark kent," to reveal issues of romance where the expectation is that men have superman powers even though there's no reference to narrator personified as the fabled "Lois."

from the terrible stories:
"fox" poems are many in which the narrator personifies a fox, fearful of the terrible stories it must tell. These poems are the sex chronicles of a woman lacking and yearning for sex, not necessarily romance.

Like "leaving fox," in desperation, the narrator drops her guards totally, leaving herself open to all kinds of pain to get the sex she craves. "keep the door unlocked until something human comes in." She knows she's exposes her vulnerabilities to the worse that may come in, but she has accepted it apart of her fulfillment.

In "one year later," the narrator ponders what if she yields to her vixen desires, but pre-empts the thought with fear of what will follow -- how ill it change or impact her life, her home, her poetry?

"a dream of foxes," the narrator supposes what if women could pursue their vixen dreams without the fear of consequences.

In `amazons," the narrator returns to other issues, such as breast cancer, mastectomy, and more. She had inherited the breast cancer gene from generations of women before her. But, fortunately, there was only a scare, due to early detection.

`slaveships" she asks why did God not protect all from the inhuman hypocrites who enslaved her people in the name of God. She questions whether the sins can go on.

In "memory," narrator recalls a childhood stripped of oppression's shadow, so she will feel like she's done a good job of protecting her child's childhood.

A few poems from Boats escaped my level of sophistication. For example, "white lady," the narrator cries to cocaine to give her a ransom so she may have her kids back. - cocaine will only tell her to make her kids depend more. I thought those well taken pleas could be better be directed at the government, white supremacy, or the dealers, but not cocaine.

And, in "poem in praise of menstruation," Clifton uses metaphors that are astounding in that they sound so right even though unless you're in a dream state, they really don't make sense. For example, uses a simile of "blood red edge of the moon" - the moon isn't red at all. A better simile might have been the sun. Or, it could be something I'm not getting because I am a man. Perhaps that is her point, during that period, excuse the pun, the sun, the moon, they're all the same.

Using a prose style, Clifton's words are defined not by Webster but by the context in which she uses them. Her words often take flight from when we've known them to some far off place where she's taking us.

Lucille Clifton, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (BOA Editions, 2000)

There's a lot of good stuff in this volume. Especially fine are the mythological poems from Quilting (1991), some of Clifton's best work, delicate yet earthy language full of wonderful images and gentle surprises:

"when she woke up
she was terrible.
under his mouth her mouth
turned red and warm
then almost crimson as the coals
smothered and forgotten
in the grate.
she had been gone so long.
there was much to unlearn.
she opened her eyes.
he was the first thing she saw
and she blamed him.
("Sleeping Beauty")

That's serious poetry right there. It tells you all you need to know, and not a whit more. Granted, not every piece in the volume stands up to these, but then, there aren't that many volumes of poetry every written where everything is of the same quality (and in most of those, every word is utterly, ineffably horrible). When Lucille Clifton is on her game, as you can see above, she's one of the better poets going today; if you're not acquainted with her stuff, you should be. *** ½

Clifton exemplifies all that is wrong with modern poetry. This is preachy, PC prose, with some odd linefeeds thrown in, written in the currently popular style, addressing the currently popular issues.

Review
Paul L. McGehee

Clichés are literary sins, so Lord forgive me when I say Lucile Clifton's Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, is a blessing to own and an inciteful read. Clifton's lines and questions resonate well within the mind of a human being struggling with the issues of living. Like her story of Cancer in the poem "Dialysis", which leaves me with, "...in my dream a house is burning...in my dream I call it light". On another level, as a Black man I can appreciate her questioning the relationships between men women; love, interracial dating, rape, and lynching. Yet it is as a man comes the only critic, well not so much of a critic as it is the perspective coming from another vessel (so to speak). Clifton's poems run deep with imagery and situations articulating the complexities of being a woman, a black woman, in this society. It gives me incite, after all, mothers and sisters have left an impression of black womanhood on my heart, yet me not being a black woman (no shame hear, no offense), I don't get the poems, wholly and truly. That is it; but it is not enough to say this would not be a great addition to anyone's literary alter.

I feel compelled to respond to the person who found the opening poem "racist" because the speaker says "another child has killed a child / and i catch myself relieved that they are / white."

First of all, the fact that a poem depicts a certain attitude or feeling does not mean that the poet endorses that attitude or feeling. In this case, the sentiment is honest even if it is not morally admirable. Poetry does not always depict life or human nature as we would like them to be, but rather as they are.

Second, the last line of the poem says "these too are your children this too is your child." So the poem has corrected the speaker's own withdrawal from the scene. It ends, I think, with a rejection of racism...but it could be a good poem even if it did not.

"The Terrible Stories," by Lucille Clifton, is a collection of poems that are written in a clear, straightforward style. The themes that strike me as most present in the collection are loss, loneliness, and the burdens of history. The poems within the book are grouped into a number of sequences.

There is a sequence of poems about an encounter with a fox; for me this sequence brings to mind larger issues of human-animal relations. I found the most powerful sequence to be about breast cancer. In the first poem in that sequence, Clifton evokes "audre" (i.e. Audre Lorde, another poet who has written eloquently on breast cancer). Also very moving is "lumpectomy eve," which captures the tenderness of "one breast / comforting the other."

Some poems explore the connection between African-Americans and Africa (these specific poems are "hag riding," "shadows," and "memphis"). Some poems are more overtly political or sociological. "the son of medgar," for example, deals with the trial of the assassin of Medgar Evers. "lorena" is a surprisingly gentle poem which evokes the story of a real-life woman who sexually mutilated her husband.

The final sequence in the book, "From the Book of David," draws from the biblical narratives of King David. These poems explore the violence of David's life, and seem to be asking how we can reconcile David the warrior with David the poet.

Clifton writes with a quiet power in this collection. I recommend this book to all those interested in poetry, African-American studies, and/or women's studies.

Clifton writes with great intensity about personal experiences in her poetry. This is a small collection that is powerful and the individual poems stay with you long after you've closed the bok.

King Shabazz is an urban boy in early elementary school who has a profound disbelief in the concept of spring. When it is mentioned in his presence, he demands to see the evidence, saying, "Where is it at?" His disbelief is so great that he recruits his friend Tony Polito to accompany him on a search for spring. They wander the neighborhood, smelling the smells and going far beyond their usual turf.
Eventually, they see an abandoned car in a vacant lot and a strange noise is coming from it. As they conquer their fear and walk towards the car, they encounter some bright yellow flowers growing among the rubbish. When they reach the car, they discover a bird's nest containing a clutch of blue eggs, which prompts King to say, "Man it's spring." Fortunately, Tony's big brother spots them and escorts them back to familiar territory.
To the very young child, this is a great adventure, crossing the street all-alone and finding things they had never seen before. It is an adventure for the urban child, many rural children will find a bit silly.

Sam Is My Half Brother is a wonderful book about a little girl named Hessie who has a stepfamily. Hessie is afraid that now that her dad and stepmother have a new baby, she will not get attention anymore. Hessie's father reminds Hessie that Sam may be a trouble right now, but he reminds Hessie of when she was his age, as well. Hessie's father shows her photos of when she was a baby. In the end, Hessie finally understands and writes a book about her half-brother, Sam. This story is of enduring interest, and it is not outdated. It offers possible solutions to problems presented for Hessie with her stepfamily. The subject, stepfamilies, is very interesting, and it is very engaging to read.

I feel the vocabulary of this book is suitable for ages 3-8 years old and grades pre-k through 3rd grade. This book was fun to read for me. Children 3-5 years may have to have an adult read to them. Children 5-8 years would be able to read the contents on their own, unless they have a learning disability.

This book contains approximately 30 pages with 6 pages with just pictures contained in them. I estimate this book takes about 7-10 minutes to read. If the teacher is reading to her students, it may take a little longer to finish because of questions asked throughout the story. This is a suitable length for ages 3-8 years old. In addition, this book allows just enough time to use with children who have special attention needs.

The font in the book is in paragraph form and would be suitable for children 5-8 years old to read. The text is not too dense for read-aloud of read-together activities. The text seems to be just the right size, and the pictures are developmentally appropriate. The author beautifully illustrates the pictures. I found that it is not permissible to reprint the book, without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and the publisher of the book. The pictures enhance the storyline throughout the book. The illustrations are realistic, the pictures are engaging, and there are not too many pictures included in the text.

The appropriate developmental level of this book is appropriate for ages 3-8 years old and grades pre-k through 3rd grade, depending on the student(s). The age of the main character, Hessie, is about 5 years old. The themes match the developmental level of the children ages 3-8 years. This book can be used with children at a variety of developmental levels.

This book contains some diversity for this age group. The gender of the main character is female. The book conveys respect to all groups referred to in the book, except the mother. I may be looking into this too much, but every page has her in a dress and a bow on her head, which can be stereotyping mothers/women. This book does not contain any diversity issues such as ethnicity or disability.

This book is about stepfamilies with the trauma of divorce. I think the value of this book for the cost is good, because it could be used multiple times with children/students. The content of this book is very versatile.

This book can be used as a therapeutic resource for teachers or parents with children. I suggest reading to a child or reading together with a child when using this book. The content promotes discussion on divorce and stepfamilies. Throughout the book, Hessie is trying to cope with the divorce of her mother and father, a new half-brother, and a stepfamily and where she belongs in the picture. This book will help children relate to their own lives dealing with divorce and stepfamilies. The pictures enhance the child's interest throughout the book and help them relate to the story.

The book, Sam Is My Half Brother, is a fantastic and heart-warming book. The book teaches how to deal with change with divorce, stepfamilies, and a new sibling. This book is well written, and I would recommend families and teachers to use this therapeutic book to read to anyone dealing with these issues. In addition, they could use this book for anyone who is interested in learning about another family structure that differs from their own.

This is great book for kids to read to help them realize that sometimes bad things can lead to good things. Also, it is all right for boys and girls to play together.

This book shares the thoughts and stories of young african american children.As the kids speak up you will here the palm of there hart speaking to you. There are just great stories some happy some sad and some tell you just how much different there lifestyle is from ours.the kids will take you to there world and express there heart.