Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000
Lucille Clifton
Outline:
In a Christian Century review of Clifton's work, Peggy Rosenthal
commented, "The first thing that strikes us about Lucille Clifton's poetry
is what is missing: capitalization, punctuation, long and plentiful lines. We
see a poetry so pared down that its spaces take on substance, become a shaping
presence as much as the words themselves."
Clifton's main focus is on women's history;
however, according to Robert Mitchell in American Book Review, her poetry has a far broader range: "Her
heroes include nameless slaves buried on old plantations, Hector Peterson (the
first child killed in the Soweto riot), Fannie Lou Hamer (founder of the
Mississippi Peace and Freedom Party), Nelson and Winnie Mandela, W. E. B.
DuBois, Huey P. Newton, and many other people who gave their lives to [free]
black people from slavery and prejudice."
Blessing the Boats is a compilation of four Clifton books, plus new poems,
which, Becker noted in her review for American Poetry Review, "shows
readers how the poet's themes and formal structures develop over time."
Among the pieces collected in these volumes are several about the author's
breast cancer, but she also deals with juvenile violence, child abuse, biblical
characters, dreams, the legacy of slavery, and a shaman-like empathy with
animals as varied as foxes, squirrels, and crabs. She also speaks in a number
of voices, as noted by Becker, including "angel, Eve, Lazarus, Leda, Lot's
Wife, Lucifer, among others ... as she probes the narratives that undergird
western civilization and forges new ones."
Biography:
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) grew
up in Buffalo, New York. She attended Howard University with a scholarship from 1953
to 1955, leaving to study at the State
University of New York at Fredonia (near Buffalo).
In 1958, Lucille
Sayles married Fred James Clifton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Buffalo,
and a sculptor whose carvings depicted African faces. Lucille and her husband
had six children together, which included four daughters (Sidney, Fredrica,
Gillian, and Alexia) and two sons (Channing and Graham). Lucille worked as a
claims clerk in the New York State Division of Employment, Buffalo (1958–60),
and as literature assistant in the Office of Education in Washington, D.C. (1960–71). Writer Ishmael Reed introduced Lucille to
Clifton 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
some of Clifton's poems to Langston Hughes, who included them in his
anthology The Poetry of the Negro. In 1967, the Cliftons 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 ten best books. From 1971 to 1974, 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 a
visiting writer at the 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 a Distinguished Professor of
Humanities at St. Mary's
College of Maryland. From 1995 to 1999, she was a visiting professor
at Columbia University.
In 2006, she was a fellow at Dartmouth College.
Rationale:
This collection of
poetry is incredible in its simplicity and raw power; Clifton proves that you
don’t have to employ poetry’s many techniques and conventions to hit a point
home. Her style is both readily accessible and yet challenging: her lack of
grammar, punctuation, and form leaves the reader to fill in the blanks about
what she could possibly mean and what her poetry could mean to you. Her poetry
also has a wide range of subjects that many may find uncomfortable in
confronting. This includes racism, sexism, domestic abuse, child abuse, African
American prejudices and pride, abortion, chronic illness, women surviving and
thriving, mythology, scripture, the working class, racial violence, and
unapologetic anger.
Teaching Ideas:
1. This slim volume of Clifton’s works begs
discussion. Students could be asked to share their interpretations of the text
as well as answer each other’s numerous questions. Do you have a favorite poem
or set of poems? Why are they your favorite? Do you have a poem or set of poems
that make you uncomfortable? Sorrowful? Angry? Why?
2. Clifton’s time as a writer and poet is
connected to other talented African American writers and figures. Students
could research these individuals and their connection to Clifton- as well as
their body of work (prose, poetry, and art).
Obstacles:
This text doesn’t hold
back when it comes to sexual and racial violence, and possess some violent
imagery. Students could also have trouble connecting to Lucille Clifton as a
person, as she has had numerous tragedies in her life that perhaps they couldn’t
understand without similar traumatic experiences. Clifton also sheds light on
20th to 21st century American culture in relation to the
struggles of its African American population. Parents and administrators could
mistake the justifiably bitter and angry tone in many of her poems as being
unpatriotic.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Clifton
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