REMEMBERING LUCILLE CLIFTON
Good morning, everyone. Here we are, still deep in winter (and deep snow in many places), yet ready once more to think about poetry.
Lucille Clifton was not only a famous African-American poet but one of our greatest and most memorable American poets. Twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, she was a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a visiting professor at Columbia University, and in 2006 a fellow at Dartmouth College. Her first book, a poetry collection called Good Times, was published in 1969 and named by The New York Times as one of the year’s best books. This was quickly succeeded by a number of other highly-regarded poetry books, a memoir, and a number of children’s books. Among her other accomplishments, she raised six children. Her death in 2010 at the age of 73 was a loss to all of us.
I had the privilege of meeting and conversing with this great lady sometime in the 1980’s, when directing a poetry reading series for the Arts Council of Princeton (NJ). Although we had a Board of Directors, I had creative freedom in selecting poets to introduce to our audience and chose them from those whose books had given me such pleasure that I wanted to share it. Lucille Clifton did not disappoint. Having grown up in Buffalo, New York, and attended SUNY Fredonia, both of which I knew very well, we had much to talk about, both at dinner and as I picked her up and drove her back to her hotel. I was sorry to say goodbye. Continue reading Poetry Monday: March 6, 2023
