Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979 to 1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. Clifton was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth27 June 1936
CityDepew, NY
CountryUnited States of America
answers one-thing
What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.
writing simple ideas
I write from my knowledge not my lack, from my strength not my weakness. I am not interested if anyone knows whether or not I am familiar with big words, I am interested in trying to render big ideas in a simple way. I am interested in being understood not admired.
writing care poet
To be a good poet, you must care more about the writing, than the writer.
loneliness eye bird
We need new words for what this is, this hunger entering our loneliness like birds, stunning our eyes into rays of hope. we need the flutter that can save us, something that will swirl across the face of what we have become and bring us grace.
matter language poetry-is
Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.
hands bridges everyday
won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.
kissing wind may
may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back
team beer men
the lost women I need to know their names those women I would have walked with, jauntily the way men go in groups swinging their arms, and the ones those sweating women whom I would have joined After a hard game to chew the fat what would we have called each other laughing joking into our beer? where are my gangs, my teams, my mislaid sisters? all the women who could have known me, where in the world are their names?
letting-go fall believe
the lesson of the falling leaves the leaves believe such letting go is love such love is faith such faith is grace such grace is god i agree with the leaves
mistake writing hymns
People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.
healing telling-the-truth
Tell the truth... maybe just to see clearly, as clearly as possible.
accepting call-me
I don't go get a poem. It calls me and I accept it.
girl mother husband
If i should enter the house and speak with my own voice, at last, about its awful furnitutre, pulling apart the covering over the dusty bodies; the randy father, the husband holding ice in his hand like a blessing, the mother bleeding into herself and the small imploding girl, i say if i should walk into that web, who will come flying after me, leaping tall buildings? you?
letting-go running new-year
I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.