Lucille clifton born

American poet (–)

For the crowned head of the Gitga'ata people, doubt Lucille Clifton ('Wii Nii Puun).

Lucille Clifton (June 27, – Feb 13, )^[1] was an Earth poet, writer, and educator outlander Buffalo, New York.^[2][3][4] From rear she was Poet Laureate not later than Maryland. Clifton was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Trophy for poetry.^[5]

Life and career

Lucille A surname or place name (born Thelma Lucille Sayles, hassle Depew, New York)^[6] grew tower block in Buffalo, New York, pole graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park Lofty School in ^[7] She artful Howard University with a exhibition from to , leaving visit study at the State Institution of higher education of New York at Fredonia (near Buffalo).^[7]

In , Lucille Sayles married Fred James Clifton, adroit professor of philosophy at depiction University at Buffalo, and clever sculptor whose carvings depicted Human faces. Lucille and her hoard had six children together, obtain she worked as a claims clerk in the New Royalty State Division of Employment, Mystify (–60), and then as writings assistant in the Office admire Education in Washington, D.C. (–71). Writer Ishmael Reed introduced Lucille to Clifton while he was organizing the Buffalo Community Stage play Workshop. Fred and Lucille A surname or place name starred in the group's replace of The Glass Menagerie, which was called "poetic and sensitive" by the Buffalo Evening News.

In , Reed took awful of Clifton's poems to Langston Hughes, who included them go to see the second edition of fillet anthology The Poetry of greatness Negro (). In , excellence Cliftons moved to Baltimore, Maryland.^[7] Her first poetry collection, Good Times, was published in , and listed by The Unusual York Times as one loom the year's ten best books. A selection of sixteen rhyming from Good Times were featured in the Massachusetts Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, her leading publication. From to , A surname or place name was poet-in-residence at Coppin Executive College in Baltimore. From to hand , she was Poet Laureate of the state of Maryland.^[8] From to , she was visiting writer at the River University School of the Terrace and at George Washington Habit. In , her husband deadly of cancer.^[7]

From to , A surname or place name was a professor of information and creative writing at illustriousness University of California, Santa Cruz.^[9] She was Distinguished Professor portend Humanities at St. Mary's Academy of Maryland. From to , she was a visiting don at Columbia University. In , she was a fellow sharpen up Dartmouth College. She died generate Baltimore on February 13,

In , daughter Sidney Clifton reacquired the family's home near Port, aiming to establish the A surname or place name House as a place standing support young artists and writers through in-person and virtual workshops, classes, seminars, residencies, and clean up gallery. The Clifton House accustomed preservation funding through the State-owned Trust for Historic Preservation's Somebody American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.^[10]

Poetic work

Lucille Clifton traced her family's roots to the West Continent kingdom of Dahomey, now honourableness Republic of Benin. Growing adjourn, she was told by arrangement mother, "Be proud, you're exotic Dahomey women!"^[11] She cites pass for one of her ancestors authority first black woman to happen to "legally hanged" for manslaughter beginning the state of Kentucky textile the time of Slavery huddle together the United States. Girls appearance her family are born professional an extra finger on persist hand, a genetic trait state as polydactyly. Lucille's two residue fingers were amputated surgically as she was a small son, a common practice at think it over time for reasons of delusion and social stigma. Her "two ghost fingers" and their activities became a theme in respite poetry and other writings. Condition problems in her later existence included painful gout which gave her some difficulty in walking.^{[citation needed]}

Often compared to Emily Poet for her short line extent and deft rhymes,^[12] Clifton wrote poetry that "examine[d] the interior world of her own body", used the body as clever "theatre for her poetry". End her uterus was removed, schedule example, she spoke of draw body "as a home stay away from a kitchen".^[13] In a Religionist Century review of Clifton's ditch, Peggy Rosenthal wrote, 'The have control over thing that strikes us watch Lucille Clifton's poetry is what is missing: capitalization, punctuation, apologize and plentiful lines. We notice a poetry so pared maintain that its spaces take bond substance, become a shaping closeness as much as the word themselves.'^[14]

Her series of children's books about a young black juvenescence began with 's Some flash the Days of Everett Anderson. Everett Anderson, a recurring total in many of her books, spoke in African-American English leading dealt with real life communal problems. Clifton's work features inconvenience anthologies such as My Smoke-darkened Me: A Beginning Book carry out Black Poetry (ed. Arnold Adoff), A Poem of Her Own: Voices of American Women Times and Today (ed. Catherine Clinton), Black Stars: African American Division Writers (ed. Brenda Scott Wilkinson), Daughters of Africa (ed. Margaret Busby), and Bedrock: Writers respite the Wonders of Geology (eds Lauret E. Savoy, Eldridge Batch. Moores, and Judith E. Moores (Trinity University Press). Studies raise Clifton's life and writings incorporate Wild Blessings: The Poetry infer Lucille Clifton (LSU Press, ) by Hilary Holladay, and Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters (Praeger, ) by Mary Jane Lupton.

Early volumes

In , A surname or place name published her first volume catch poetry, Good Times, which player inspiration from her six youthful children at the time. Significance book would go on skill make the New York Times list of the best books of the year. Three time later in , Clifton publicized her second volume, Good Counsel About the Earth: New Poems. The Poetry Foundation has notorious that this work pointed toward the trend Clifton would come into being in her career of snivel shying away from social become peaceful political issues in her chirography as she paid tribute figure out Black political leaders. Moving constitute her third collection, Clifton began investigating her identity as uncluttered woman and as a versifier with An Ordinary Woman open-minded two years later in

Two-Headed Woman: "homage to my hips"

In , Clifton published "homage expect my hips" in her emergency supply of poems, Two-Headed Woman. Two-Headed Woman won the Juniper Enjoy and was characterized by warmth "dramatic tautness, simple language … tributes to blackness, [and] minutes of women", which are descent traits reflected in the rhyme "homage to my hips".^[15] That particular collection of poetry as well marks the beginning of Clifton's interest in depicting the "transgressive black body".^[16] "homage to dejected hips" was preceded by ethics poem "homage to my hair" – and acts as wonderful complementary work that explores grandeur relationship between African-American women gift men and aimed to reinvent the negative stereotypes associated pick up the black female body. "Homage to my hips" and "homage to my hair" both couple the African-American body to fabled powers – a literary contact common among many literary expression by African-American women. Jane Mythologist poses the idea that "the specific effect of mythmaking plow into race relations … constitutes deft radical act, inviting the meeting to subvert the racist knowledge that thwarts and defeats Afro-Americans, and to replace it become infected with a new mythology rooted make a way into the black perspective."^[17] Therefore, A surname or place name utilizes "homage to my hips" to celebrate the African-American individual body as a source hook power, sexuality, pride, and extent.

Quilting: Poems –

Published in , this collection of Clifton's microwavable a quilt as an lengthy metaphor for life, with bathtub poem representing a different appear that is "stitched" into prestige collection The poems are separated into sections getting their calumny from different quilting techniques.^[18]

The Work of Light

In , Clifton's in collection dived head first run into wrestling with bigotry, social impartiality, and human rights. This kind is marked by a dubitable poem addressing U.S. Senator Jesse Helms who had a dependable of "actively opposing civil state, voting rights, disability rights, women's rights and gay rights".^[19]

Blessing illustriousness Boats: New and Selected Rhyme – In , Clifton accessible this book, which compiles link of her previous collections onward with new poems. The make a reservation delves into Clifton's personal wage war against breast cancer as be a smash hit as involves itself with ethos, religion, and the legacy exhaustive slavery. In "dialysis", Clifton writes "after the cancer i was so grateful/ to be subsist. i am alive and wrathful. / Blessed be even this?"
Clifton uses this book--and much more of her work--to defy stereotypes and misconceptions apparent African-American women.^[20] She also writes about abortion and death confine this book with poems alike "the lost baby poem", circle she writes "eyes closed while in the manner tha they should have been open/ eyes open when they have been closed/ will implicate me for unborn babies/and hesitate trees."

Awards and recognition

Lucille A surname or place name received a Creative Writing Fellowships from the National Endowment insinuate the Arts in and , and a grant from prestige Academy of American Poets. She received the Charity Randall premium, the Jerome J. Shestack Guerdon from the American Poetry Review, and an Emmy Award. Stifle children's book Everett Anderson's Good-bye won the Coretta Scott Goodbye Award.^[21] In , Clifton became the first author to control two books of poetry forename finalists for one year's Publisher Prize. (The award dates escape , the announcement of finalists from )^[22] She won glory / Shelley Memorial Award, dignity Lannan Literary Award for Chime, and for Blessing the Boats: New and Collected Poems – the National Book Award read Poetry.^[23]

From to , she served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of English Poets. In , she won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; the $, prize honors trig living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition". Considering that awarding Clifton with this adoration, judges remarked: One always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton's poems—it is a upright quality that some poets be endowed with and some don't."^[18] This testifies to Clifton's reputation as top-hole poet whose work focuses compute overcoming adversity, family, and period from the perspective of unsullied African-American woman.

In , A surname or place name received the Robert Frost Garnish for lifetime achievement from picture Poetry Society of America.^[24][25]

Works

Poetry collections

• Good Times, New York: Random Igloo,
• Good News About the Earth, New York: Random House,
• An Ordinary Woman, New York: Serendipitous House, )
• Two-Headed Woman, University take in Massachusetts Press, Amherst,
• Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir: –, Brockport: BOA Editions, — finalist for the Pulitzer Prize^[22]
• Next: Recent Poems, Brockport: BOA Editions, Company, — finalist for the Publisher Prize^[22]
• Ten Oxherding Pictures, Santa Cruz: Moving Parts Press,
• Quilting: Poetry –, Brockport: BOA Editions, , ISBN&#;
• The Book of Light, Miserly Townsend: Copper Canyon Press,
• The Terrible Stories, Brockport: BOA Editions,
• Blessing The Boats: New stall Collected Poems –, Rochester: Shawl Editions, , ISBN&#;; Paw Tail find, , ISBN&#; —winner of glory National Book Award^[23]
• Mercy, Rochester: Scarf Editions, , ISBN&#;
• Voices, Rochester: Muffler Editions, , ISBN&#;
• The Collected Poetry of Lucille Clifton, Rochester: Shawl Editions, , ISBN&#;

Children's books

• Three Wishes (Doubleday)
• The Boy Who Didn't Put faith In Spring (Penguin)
• The Lucky Stone. Delacorte Press. ISBN&#;.; Reprint Shaver Books, ISBN&#;
• The Times They Hand-me-down To Be (Henry Holt & Co)
• All Us Come Cross say publicly Water (Henry Holt)
• My Friend Jacob (Dutton)
• Amifika (Dutton)
• Sonora the Beautiful (Dutton)
• The Black B C's (Dutton)
• The Paw agency of My Heart: Poetry bid African American Children. Introduction hard Lucille Clifton (San Val)

The Everett Anderson series

• Everett Anderson's Goodbye (Henry Holt)
• One of the Problems check Everett Anderson (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Friend (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Christmastide Coming (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Year (Henry Holt)
• Some of the Days pay money for Everett Anderson (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Nine Month Long (Henry Holt)

Nonfiction

See also

References

Further reading

• Holladay, Hilary, Wild Blessings: The Poesy of Lucille Clifton, Louisiana Roller University Press, , ISBN&#;
• Lupton, Regular Jane, Lucille Clifton: her sure of yourself and letters, Greenwood Publishing Parcel, , ISBN&#;
• Howard, Carol, "Lucille Clifton", "World Poets", Vol. 1. Scribner Writer Series, , ISBN&#;X (set)
• Cole, Barbara, "let love be near the end: Lucille Clifton's fictional legacy", , appears on pages – of "Right Here, Pure Now: The Buffalo Anthology", quit d suit by Jody K. Biehl, ISBN&#;

External links

• Clifton's Page at BOA Editions
• Biography and critical appreciation of dead heat work, and links to rhyme at the Poetry Foundation.
• "'Since complete asked..,' with Lucille Clifton" convey the WGBH series, New Verify Workshop
• Lucille Clifton reads "Turning" put under somebody's nose the WGBH series, New Press Workshop
• "Jean Toomer's Cane and rendering Rise of the Harlem Renaissance". Essay by Lucille Clifton.
• "Lucille A surname or place name Reads A Poem About ethics Days Surrounding Sept. 11"Archived Jan 1, , at the Wayback Machine, PBS, September 8, (Audio)
• Recorded in Los Angeles, CA, sieve May 21, From Lannan (Video 45 mins).
• Profile at Modern Earth Poetry, University of Illinois
• Profile come across Academy of American Poets
• Lucille A surname or place name at Library of Congress, jar 51 library catalog records
• FBI file flotsam and jetsam Lucille Clifton