Lucile Clifton: Reflections of Triumph

2155 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Research in african american literature

Lucille Clifton’s experiences as an African-American living in a town inhabited by mostly Caucasians affected her decisions and goals in life. Growing up in a world filled with racism and gender discrimination, Clifton challenged and overcame stereotypes about both blacks and women. Despite her early struggles, Clifton writes about her problems as she endeavors living to the fullest extent. As a child, Clifton remained thankful for her parents “gifts of poetry and storytelling” (Lupton 18). These experiences as an African-American living in an impoverished environment along with a lasting love for her community and family helped Clifton grow as a person and poet. Therefore, she gained popularity for portraying African-American youth and family life in her works. Overcoming all of her struggles was most likely the hardest thing to accomplish, and reflecting on them through poetry came naturally.

As her lifestyle improved, Clifton’s works and opportunities increased, allowing her to complete her education at various schools and become a published author. Lucille Clifton has stated on many occasions that she believes a poet’s job requires telling the truth about the world and about life (Lupton 2). Therefore, her poems were “generally short and precise,” using “simple, easy-to-understand language” to transcend literal meaning though powerful images (Champion 76). Most of her famous poems rooted from her experience as an African-American women raised in poverty. Critics acknowledge Clifton’s “ability to craft powerful, evocative images that express pride in her identity as a black woman” (Milne 113). However, although she had a love for music and the arts, it never occurred to Clifton that she would pursue a career in poe...

... middle of paper ...

...of Clifton’s signature poetic traits requires the solitary application of lowercase letters, which shows in her three poems “Good Times,” “My Mama Moved Among the Days,” and “Climbing.”

Works Cited

Champion, Laurie. “Lucille Clifton” in Contemporary American Women Poets: An A-to

Z guide. Cucinella, Catherine, ed. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. 75-78.

Print.

"Lucille Clifton Sample Poems and Analysis." ECHOES: great poets inspiring

Young writers. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.

Lupton, Mary Jane. Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters. Westport: Praeger Publishers,

2006. Print.

Milne, Ira Mark, ed. “Climbing: Lucille Clifton.” Poetry for Students. Volume 14.

Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007. Print.

Thuers, Naomi. “Lucille Clifton” in Truthtellers of the Times. Mullaney, Janet Palmer, ed.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 12-14. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Little Brown Baby Literary Devices

    1340 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/

    Read More

  • A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes and My Little Dreams by Georgia Douglas Johnson

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement during the 1920s and 1930s, in which African-American art, music and literature flourished. It was significant in many ways, one, because of its success in destroying racist stereotypes and two, to help African-Americans convey their hard lives and the prejudice they experienced. In this era, two distinguished poets are Langston Hughes, who wrote the poem “A Dream Deferred” and Georgia Douglas Johnson who wrote “My Little Dreams”. These two poems address the delayment of justice, but explore it differently, through their dissimilar uses of imagery, tone and diction.

    Read More

  • Gwendolyn Brooks Research Paper

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in “American Childhood.” Brooks’ poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender. At age 16, Brooks had written over seventy poems (J.Williams 28).In Brooks’ early years of writing she spoke on a lot. She talked about racial discrimination and praised African American heroes. Also, Brooks satirized both blacks and whites (A.williams1). In 1993, Gwendolyn meet poet James Weldon Johnson and writer Langston Hughes. The two influenced Brooks’ writing tremendously. The influence lead her to write over seventy poems (Bloom 12).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Countee Leroy Cullen's Incident

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 163-67. Print.

    Read More

  • The Influential Work of Paul Laurence Dunbar

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many writers begin writing and showing literary talent when they are young. Paul Laurence Dunbar, born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, was already editor of a newspaper and had had two of his poems published in the local newspaper before he’d graduated from high school. His classmate, Orville Wright, printed The Tattler which Dunbar edited and published for the local African American community. After graduating from high school, he was forced to get a job as an elevator operator which allowed him spare time for writing. He finally gained recognition outside of Dayton when, in 1892, he was invited to address the Western Association of Writers and met James Newton Matthews who praised his work in a letter to an Illinois newspaper. In 1892, he decided to publish his first book of poems entitled Oak and Ivy and four years later his second book of poems Majors and Minors was published. People began to see him as a symbol for his race, and he was thought of artistically as “a happy-go-lucky, singing, shuffling, banjo-picking being… in a log cabin amid fields of cotton” (Dunbar, AAW 2). Dunbar’s poems, written alternately in literary and dialect English, are about love, death, music, laughter, human frailty, and though Dunbar tried to mute themes of social protest, social commentary on racial themes is present in his poetry.

    Read More

  • Maya Angelou

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    This piece of autobiographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction

    Read More

  • African American History in A Red Record

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. Print.

    Read More

  • Hughes, Lucille Clifton, And I, Too, By Langston Hughes

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    Clifton says, “Study the masters like my aunt timmie. It was her iron, or one like hers that smoothed the sheets the master poet slept on.” In this poem, Clifton argues that not only black people, but black women were critical in the making of America. Clifton also articulates, “If you had heard her chanting as she ironed you would understand form and line and discipline and order and america.” Clifton again implies that women played a central role in the creation of America by saying this. She suggests that the working woman’s dream, defines

    Read More

  • Contrasting Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God

    4138 Words  | 9 Pages

    This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.

    Read More

  • Brown Girl Dreaming By Jacqueline Woodson Essay

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end

    Read More

  • Langtson Hughes

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... a recurring theme of the dream of equality. Hughes composed many poems and plays during the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Era, and his legacy continues to be evident throughout American culture. His words inspired many, and showcased the plight of African-Americans in that era. Hughes’ impact was memorable because he lead African-Americans into writing, much like other distinguished African-American authors of the Harlem Renaissance period. His voice was heard above most other authors of the 1920’s and 30’s, and he expressed his wishes for improved treatment of the black race and the eradication of segregation in the United States with lyrical, thought-provoking poetry and symbolic dramas. Hughes inspired many writers and social activists after him, and continues to be a prominent figure in the general and literary achievements in African-American history.

    Read More

  • Figurative Language And Diction In Queens, 1963, By Julia Alvarez

    703 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Queens, 1963”, the speaker narrates to her audience her observations that she has collected from living in her neighborhood located in Queens, New York in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The narrator is a thirteen-year-old female immigrant who moved from the Dominican Republic to America with her family. As she reflects on her past year of living in America, she reveals a superb understanding of the reasons why the people in her neighborhood act the way they do towards other neighbors. In “Queens, 1963” by Julia Alvarez, the poet utilizes diction, figurative language, and irony to effectively display to the readers that segregation is a strong part of the American melting pot.

    Read More

  • Comparing Poems 'I, Too And' Theme For English B

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.

    Read More

  • Margaret Walker

    1309 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.

    Read More

  • Black Poetry

    2173 Words  | 5 Pages

    Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.

    Read More

More about Lucile Clifton: Reflections of Triumph

Open Document