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zalenaIn one of my rabbit-hole internet experiences, I came across something posted by one of the current creative writing faculty professors at CU. I had thought it was regarding an event for a visiting professor, a lecture series on 'Why We Write.' With a slight roll of the eyes I clicked through to find a very long paragraph by Jaqueline Jones LeMon on some of the usual romantic preoccupations with the daemonic.
It took me a moment to figure out that the post was not by the person posting it, that it was not about an event, and to sort through my own thoughts on the issue (I think that the reasons for writing are as varied as the persons writing, though I suspect it is something of a pathology, or the expression of it, at very least: daemonic perhaps, diseased most probably) before I noticed the "In Memoriam: Lucille Clifton 1936-2010" at the bottom of the post.
Not Lucille Clifton! I thought. Not her, not yet! She is not only the author of a number of well-respected books for young people, she is a poet of great eloquence and honesty. She was one of the poets---I can't even remember when I first encountered her in college---that changed my assumptions about poetry (what it is, what it's about, who can write it, how its approached/appreciated, etc.) and gave me a sense that it was worth doing for its own sake and mine, not for the laurels or accolades of anyone else. We need is more poets with the courage and commitment of Lucille Clifton, not one less.
In any case, what I can say about Lucille Clifton pales beside what has already been written about her. Here is an excerpt from her profile at The Poetry Foundation, which addresses her answer to the question of "why we write":
Lucille Clifton is also a highly-regarded author for children. Her books for children are designed to help them understand their world and facilitate an understanding of black heritage specifically, which in turn fosters an important link with the past. In books like All Us Come Cross the Water (1973), Clifton creates the context to raise awareness of African-American history and heritage. Her most famous creation, though, is Everett Anderson, an African-American boy living in a big city. Clifton went on to publish eight Everett Anderson titles, including Everett Anderson’s Goodbye (1984), which won the Coretta Scott King Award. Connecting Clifton’s work as a children’s author to her poetry, Jocelyn K. Moody in the Oxford Companion to African American Literature wrote: “Like her poetry, Clifton's short fiction extols the human capacity for love, rejuvenation, and transcendence over weakness and malevolence even as it exposes the myth of the American dream.”
Speaking to Michael S. Glaser during an interview for the Antioch Review, Clifton reflected that she continues to write, because "writing is a way of continuing to hope ... perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone." How would Clifton like to be remembered? "I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human. My inclination is to try to help."
I highly recommend reading the whole profile which is an excellent (and inspirational) overview of her life and work:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1304
See also her Washington Post obituary, which opens with the following:
When she was a girl, Lucille Clifton sat on her mother's lap and listened to her recite poetry. Her mother never made it through elementary school, but she knew the power of language, and her poems stayed in her daughter's head forever.
But another memory seared itself in young Lucille's memory, too: when her father said no wife of his would be a poet. She watched as her thwarted mother threw her pages of verse into a burning furnace...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022003419.html
Here's my post about it in the B&N Letter Blocks blog:
http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Letter-Blocks-The-BN-Parents-and/Remembering-Lucille-Clifton-Poet-Educator-Children-s-Author/ba-p/485522
It took me a moment to figure out that the post was not by the person posting it, that it was not about an event, and to sort through my own thoughts on the issue (I think that the reasons for writing are as varied as the persons writing, though I suspect it is something of a pathology, or the expression of it, at very least: daemonic perhaps, diseased most probably) before I noticed the "In Memoriam: Lucille Clifton 1936-2010" at the bottom of the post.
Not Lucille Clifton! I thought. Not her, not yet! She is not only the author of a number of well-respected books for young people, she is a poet of great eloquence and honesty. She was one of the poets---I can't even remember when I first encountered her in college---that changed my assumptions about poetry (what it is, what it's about, who can write it, how its approached/appreciated, etc.) and gave me a sense that it was worth doing for its own sake and mine, not for the laurels or accolades of anyone else. We need is more poets with the courage and commitment of Lucille Clifton, not one less.
In any case, what I can say about Lucille Clifton pales beside what has already been written about her. Here is an excerpt from her profile at The Poetry Foundation, which addresses her answer to the question of "why we write":
Lucille Clifton is also a highly-regarded author for children. Her books for children are designed to help them understand their world and facilitate an understanding of black heritage specifically, which in turn fosters an important link with the past. In books like All Us Come Cross the Water (1973), Clifton creates the context to raise awareness of African-American history and heritage. Her most famous creation, though, is Everett Anderson, an African-American boy living in a big city. Clifton went on to publish eight Everett Anderson titles, including Everett Anderson’s Goodbye (1984), which won the Coretta Scott King Award. Connecting Clifton’s work as a children’s author to her poetry, Jocelyn K. Moody in the Oxford Companion to African American Literature wrote: “Like her poetry, Clifton's short fiction extols the human capacity for love, rejuvenation, and transcendence over weakness and malevolence even as it exposes the myth of the American dream.”
Speaking to Michael S. Glaser during an interview for the Antioch Review, Clifton reflected that she continues to write, because "writing is a way of continuing to hope ... perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone." How would Clifton like to be remembered? "I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human. My inclination is to try to help."
I highly recommend reading the whole profile which is an excellent (and inspirational) overview of her life and work:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1304
See also her Washington Post obituary, which opens with the following:
When she was a girl, Lucille Clifton sat on her mother's lap and listened to her recite poetry. Her mother never made it through elementary school, but she knew the power of language, and her poems stayed in her daughter's head forever.
But another memory seared itself in young Lucille's memory, too: when her father said no wife of his would be a poet. She watched as her thwarted mother threw her pages of verse into a burning furnace...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022003419.html
Here's my post about it in the B&N Letter Blocks blog:
http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Letter-Blocks-The-BN-Parents-and/Remembering-Lucille-Clifton-Poet-Educator-Children-s-Author/ba-p/485522
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Date: 2010-02-23 12:31 am (UTC)Time for a re-read...