Books by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue  / Outlandish Blues  / Red Clay Suite

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Books by Lucille Clifton

The Book of Light  / Quilting / Next  / the terrible stories /Blessing the Boats

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Lucille Clifton Still Missed and Always Loved

By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 

Today, February 13, 2011, is the one-year anniversary of Poet Lucille Clifton’s passing. It’s been a tough year, and a lonely year with my grief. I will admit that.

Other people knew the poems and the public persona, and I loved the poems, too, no doubt. But I loved the lady as well and she was my friend; it’s hard to explain to people that “I met her after a great reading” or “I teach her poems” is not the same as a real friendship. And the grief can’t be the same, either.

Sometimes, I’ve been so angry when I’ve mentioned online missing Miss Lucille, only to have a fan of hers say, “Oh, I know what you mean; I miss her, too.” If the fan is an African American, sometimes they refer to her as “Mama Lucille.”

I try to understand that Miss Lucille’s work meant so much to so many, but I gotta say, the narcissistic quality of  these encounters over this past year—the “ok, back to me and my feelings” vibe—burns me up. More than that, these encounters have been emotionally painful.

For example, last September (2010), I read as part of a public memorial for Miss Lucille at the Furious Flower Center at James Madison University. There were seventy-three poets and each of us was given a poem by Miss Lucille to read. Much to my embarrassment, I broke down into sobs onstage before it was my time to read and the poet Kevin Young—also a good friend of Miss Lucille—came on stage to comfort me and help me get myself together. I did get myself together, and gave the reading of the one poem I had been assigned, which was (ironically) about crying.

After the memorial, though, several people came up to me and congratulated me on my “acting skills.” They thought I had staged the whole thing.  One Black lady in particular kept hounding me. (“You’re an actress, right?” Those were her first words to me.) I kept walking away from the woman while she kept trying to get me to admit I was lying about not faking my tears, but she kept coming back to find me. Finally, I had to have some choice words with her to make her leave me alone. I’ll leave it at that.

I was appalled. I couldn’t believe that people would think I was so tacky to fake tears—until I remembered that 99.9% of the folks in that audience only had a relationship with Miss Lucille’s poems and not Miss Lucille the woman. I had been counting on the public memorial to help me get past my grief; I thought I could share what I felt with other Black poets and this would make me feel better, but instead, I ended up feeling embarrassed, misunderstood, and even more alone.

Sidebar: I’m not a blood child of Miss Lucille, who had four daughters and two sons.  Just like “I teach her poems” isn’t the same as “she was my friend,” I am very aware that “she was my friend” is not the same as “she was my mother.” I don’t know how her children feel, and I would never try to say my grief could be the same as theirs, because it can’t be.

No matter what anyone says, a friendship can’t equal being someone’s blood child, someone who shared the same heartbeat and blood inside a mother’s body, and rested in her womb, and then drank her breast milk outside—or, if you are adopted child, being raised by a woman, day in and day out, living in her house, being protected by her, eating the food she prepares for you, and nestling inside the comfort of her unconditional embrace.

Yes, it’s been a very sad year, but I have changed and grown in ways I could never imagine over this year, even in my grief, or perhaps because of it. I am stronger and more fearless.  I’m a woman now, more than ever, and I understand some of what Miss Lucille understood and tried to tell me, though I will never be a mother like she was. What hasn’t changed is my love and devotion of her.

I know it’s time for me to let Miss Lucille rest now, though it’s so hard.  I’ll remember her birthday every year, of course, but in some Native American communities, it is considered wrong to keep calling the names of the dead over and over, lest you disturb them. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know I want her to be happy and at peace.

It’s time for me to be private about my feelings, so I don’t think I will keep talking about them. I know I have to move on, in public at least, but I wanted to celebrate Miss Lucille,  before I stop calling her name in public constantly.

Here is a link to a podcast I did with poets Nikky Finny, Elizabeth Alexander, Lyrae Van Clief Stefanon, Kelly Norman Ellis, and Miss Lucille’s first-born daughter, Sidney Clifton. It was in celebration of Miss Lucille’s birthday, June 27. [When you get to the page, click "Episode 8.]

And below is a video I found of Miss Lucille reading with the Lannan Foundation—a full reading, not just a snippet–and then an interview with the poet Quincy Troupe, who was a good friend of Miss Lucille. I hope you enjoy it. Miss Lucille is looking so pretty in her outfit. She loved very colorful blouses in shades of blue, and loved you to tell her how cute she was looking in them.

The videos take a few seconds to load up, so please be patient. If it doesn’t load for you, click this link to go directly to the site.

Enjoy–and when you watch the video, don’t forget to say, “Miss Lucille, you’re looking pretty cute in that outfit.” She would really, really appreciate that, y’all.

13 February 2011

Source: phillisremastered

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Lucille Clifton, Reading, 21 May 1996

Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in Depew, New York. Her luminous and incisive poems have been published in nine books, including The Book of Light, Quilting, and Next.

Ms. Clifton has said, “I’ve always been a person who found more interesting the stories between the stories. I’ve always wondered the hows and the whys to things. Why is this like this? What has gone into making us who we are? Is it good or not so good? What is destroying us? What will keep us warm?”

Ms. Clifton, who has also written numerous books for children, received a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry in 1996. She was Distinguished Professor for Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Ms Clifton died on February 13th, 2010.

This event was recorded in Los Angeles, CA. You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website, lannan.org

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Lucille Clifton (born Thelma Lucille Sayles 27 June 1936) grew up in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park High School in 1953. She went on to study on a scholarship at Howard University from 1953 to 1955, and after leaving over poor grades, studied at the State University of New York at Fredonia (near Buffalo).

In 1958, she married Fred James Clifton, a professor of Philosophy, at the University of Buffalo and sculptor whose carvings depicted African faces. Lucille worked as a claims clerk in the New York State Division of Employment, Buffalo (1958–1960), and as literature assistant in the Office of Education in Washington, D.C. (1960–1971). Writer Ishmael Reed, introduced Mrs. Clifton to her husband Fred, while he was organizing The Buffalo Community Drama Workshop. Fred and Lucille Clifton starred in the group's version of "The Glass Menagerie" which was called "Poetic and Sensitive" by The Buffalo Evening News.

In 1966, Reed took Mrs. Clifton's poetry to Langston Hughes, who included them in his anthology The Poetry Of The Negro. In 1967, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland.  Her first poetry collection Good Times was published in 1969, and listed by The New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books. From 1971 to 1974, Lucille Clifton was poet-in-residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore. From 1979 to 1985, she was Poet Laureate of the state of Maryland. From 1982 to 1983 she was visiting writer at Columbia University School of the Arts and at George Washington University. In 1984, her husband died of cancer. From 1985 to 1989, Clifton was a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland. From 1995 to 1999, she was Visiting Professor at Columbia University. In 2006, she was a fellow at Dartmouth College. Lucille Clifton traced her family's roots to the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin.

Growing up she was told by her mother, "Be proud, you're from Dahomey women!" She cites as one of her ancestors the first black woman to be "legally hanged" for manslaughter in the state of Kentucky during the time of Slavery in the United States. Girls in her family are born with an extra finger on each hand, a genetic trait known as polydactyly.

Lucille's two extra fingers were amputated surgically when she was a small child, a common practice at that time for reasons of superstition and social stigma. Her "two ghost fingers" and their activities became a theme in her poetry and other writings. Health problems in her later years included painful gout which gave her some difficulty in walking.

In 2007, Clifton won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; the $100,000 prize honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition." Clifton is set to receive the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement posthumously, from the Poetry Society of America.—Wikipedia

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Poems by Lucille Clifton

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The Book of Light By Lucille Clifton Clifton's (Quilting) latest collection clearly demonstrates why she was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. These poems contain all the simplicity and grace readers have come to expect from her work. The first few pages set the title in a larger perspective at the same time that they announce the book's premise: "woman, i am / lucille, which stands for light." This is a feminist version of Roots , charged with outrage at the sins done to women of previous generations. There are the typical heroes and anti-heroes: Atlas, Sisyphus, Leda, biblical women--but even these tired figures are given a new, often comic, twist: Naomi, for example, doesn't want Ruth's devotion, just to be left alone to "grieve in peace"; several poems are addressed to Clark Kent as the speaker comes to terms with the realization that he doesn't have the power to save her after all. And what do today's women have instead of superheroes? Jesse Helms; fathers who "burned us all." Though it is based more or less in traditional Christianity, the poetry also is concerned with how spirituality can be personal. Low key and poignant, poem after poem takes the form of a conversation, whether woman to her dead parents, Lucifer to God, or poet to reader.— Publishers Weekly

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the terrible stories By Lucille Clifton In a long career, Clifton has earned that rare combination of critical acclaim (including two Pulitzer Prize nominations) and a wide popular audience. Heir to Langston Hughes's deceptively ordinary voice, Clifton crafts brief lines and accessible metaphors into a profound and often humorous commentary on the rich survival skills of women, family love and contemporary American “particularly African American” life. Her cogent 10th collection charts a treacherous terrain of personal and historic tragedy. She confronts breast cancer with an impressive delicacy, as in "scar": "I will call you/ ribbon of hunger/ and desire/ empty pocket flap/ edge of before and after.// and you/ what will you call me?" A poetic sequence called "A Term in Memphis" penetrates Southern history, allowing the revelations of honest anger to operate as antidote “not comfort” for bigotry. Often drawn to religious themes, Clifton ambitiously explores contradictions of the Bible's King David, a poet and a soldier who "stands in the tents of history/ bloody skull in one hand, harp in the other. . . ."

With her sustaining ability to spin pain into beauty, Clifton redeems the human spirit from its dark moments. She is among our most trustworthy and gifted poets.—Publishers Weekly

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Blessing the Boats New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 By Lucille Clifton Clifton's poems owe a great deal to oral tradition. Her work is wonderfully musical and benefits greatly from being read aloud: "It is hard to remain human on a day/ when birds perch weeping/ in the trees and the squirrel eyes/ do not look away but the dog ones do/ in pity." Her keen sense of rhythm, of the sound, tone, and texture of words, is delightful, a rare find in this day and age. The language is crystal clear and deceptively accessible. The poems are personal, but the distant thunder of history rumbles behind every line. As she says on seeing a photograph: "is it the cut glass/ of their eyes/ looking up toward/ the new gnarled branch/ of the black man/ hanging from a tree?" Clifton's work hearkens back to the days of the Black Arts Movement and sheds light on the new black aesthetic. These are economical slices of ordinary life, celebrations, if you will, of African American existence. With simple language and common sense, she writes of grace, character, and race by way of the personal and familiar. Clifton's voice, her unique vision and wisdom, make this book essential for any serious poetry collection.—Library Journal

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posted 14 February 2011