While the use of lowercase throughout seems less-than-always apt, Clifton's idiom is unmistakable, well beyond her quip some years ago-''I am a Black woman poet, and I sound like one.'' A companion to Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, this collection distills a distinctive American voice, one that pulls no punches in taking on the best and worst of life. and ''study the masters'' (''like my aunt timmie'').

Quilting juxtaposes updatings of Eden with poems on menstruation, and with, among others, the title poem: ''may the tide/ that is entering even now/ the lip of our understanding/ carry you out.'' the book of light features three Leda poems (''sometimes another star chooses./ the ones coming in from the east/ are dagger-fingered men'') and the seven-part serial stock-taking ''far memory,'' while The Terrible Stories tell of ''the coming of the fox'' (in several poems) and wait for ''something human.'' New poems chart the aftermath of cancer and kidney failure, speak in the voice of the murdered James Byrd Jr. Proceeding chronologically, poems from next retell ''my dream about the cows,'' ''my dream about being white'' and ''the message of thelma sayles,'' among other poems and modes. Enjoy.Culling from her last four books and including 19 new poems, Clifton's latest offers few surprises, but all of the joys and straight-talk readers have come to expect over 40 or so years of work. Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in DePew, New York, and grew up in Buffalo. Share it with your children, and may you all find what you need in it. It is a moving sendoff for a sailor, an inspirational wish for a graduate, an elegant elegy. “Blessing the Boats” speaks to us of transitions, both small and grand. She served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. In 1999, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She received many honors for her work including two Pulitzer Prize nominations, an Emmy, and the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize. She left a career in public service to devote herself full time to writing in 1971, at age 35, when she became a writer in residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland.Ĭlifton was the author of several other collections of poetry, including Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 (BOA Editions, 2000), which won the National Book Award.

Born in Depew, New York in 1936, Clifton’s first book of poetry was published in 1969. Hello GCP‘ers! Yes, it has been a while, and while it is not actually Thursday, (let’s call it “Thursday Plus”) here is a lovely Thoughtful Thursday poem for you all, “Blessing the Boats” by the renowned African American poet Lucille Clifton (1936-2010).

Blessing the boats by lucille clifton