Mercy, a poetry collection of emotion, prose, and chronicles, was diligently written by Lucille Clifton through intricate depictions of personal and life experiences presented throughout her life. Clifton separates her collection into four distinct cycles, beginning her collection with the series of poems termed “last words,” which explores lingering memories and astutely described moments through elegies and valediction. Throughout this cycle of Clifton’s work, the final lines are imperative to their respective poem, bridging the metaphorical or literal stanzas with a thematic closure. Thus, to impose understandable interpretations of her complex diction, Clifton utilizes her closing lines within the section “last words” by conjoining her …show more content…
The free verse poem begins with a narrative of a woman who recalls her mother’s passing, fusing emotion with color, “there was a woman who hit her head and ever after she could see the sharp wing of blues and greens radiating from the body of her sister, her mother, her friends.” (Clifton, lines 1-5). Clifton elucidates her perspective on those around her by inserting the vision of blue and green hues swirling around her, using naturistic colors to symbolize their animated and lively existences. As Clifton maneuvers through her perception of her surroundings, she also depicts the before and after of her mother’s passing. Specifically, the first stanzas illuminate the fragility and beauty of those she loved, ultimately opposing her later reference to her mother lying in her casket, “behind her sewn eyes there were hints of purple and crimson and gold” (Clifton, lines 15-16). As before, Clifton describes the active spirit of her friends and family, now Clifton eminently paints her mother in a state of
Quilting - Foxes in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton In 1942 Virginia Woolf read a paper to the Women’s Service League about "The Angel in the House." For Woolf, this "Angel" represented the voice in the back of the mind of a woman that was saying, "Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own" (1346). During Woolf’s time a woman was not supposed to write critically. Rather, a woman was supposed to "be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of her sex."
Two Different Attitudes, Two Different Worlds In this essay I am going to compare and contrast the speakers and the stories of 'Homage to my Hips'; and 'Her Kind';. The speakers in this stories have very different attitudes, and approaches in telling their story about the same topic. While talking about the oppression of women, both Lucille Clifton and Anne Sexton take the own stance on the situation. While Clifton expresses her proud and self-confident attitude, Sexton on the other hand speaks
The title of Lucille Clifton's poem, "forgiving my father", seems to be in sharp opposition with the poem itself. There seems to be no forgiveness, yet the title claims that it is there. The entire poem focuses on the debt of the author's father. "it is Friday." she says, "we have come to the paying of the bills." (1-2). But perhaps it doesn't necessarily mean that it is literally Friday, perhaps she just means it is the end, and maybe the debt isn't one of money, but of love. Clifton is using a monetary
Cancer and Lucille Clifton's Poetry Sometimes knowledge of someone’s life can be taught by stanzas. It is not always simple being honest and open to discuss past troubles, but it is important that those negative thoughts do not stay bottled inside you. Expressing these feelings can help aid in recovering. Lucille Clifton uses poetry as her therapy to bring out all the shadows in her life. From the beginning of her career with the publishing of Good News About the Earth in 1972 to the most
The Feminist Dynamic of Lucille Clifton Quilting bees were occasions for women to gather bringing discarded scraps of material, which they masterfully transformed, into works of art. The bee was also a social gathering where women told tales, exchanged ideas, and encouraged one another. Lucille Clifton's collection of poetry entitled Quilting continues the wonderful tradition by skillfully bringing together poems that entertain, inform, and encourage. Two of Clifton's poems, "eve's version"
patients of color. While the phenomenon of racial and gender discrimination in medicine has received more attention in recent years, a solution to the issue is still unresolved. In the poem, “1944”, Lucille Clifton depicts her life story following her diagnosis with breast cancer. Throughout the piece, Clifton repeatedly references “coldness” and the “winter”
and sometimes harmonious conditions that plagued Africans during slavery and the slave trade. By reading the actual words, thoughts, and feelings of these enslaved Africans, modern writers receive information from the perspective of the victimized. Lucille Clifton's "slaveship" is a vivid example of a contemporary writer borrowing from the past to depict another account of the slave trade. The fact that Clifton's father told her stories about her family's struggle and she, herself, traced her lineage
seeks to lead us away from God and into his own realm of fear, torment, and undying agony. He is to be shunned and feared, lest he bring us to perdition. He is not human and he possesses none of the traits of a good person, only the bad ones. Lucille Clifton uses Lucifer in quite a number of her poems. She does not use him in the traditional role of the inhuman enemy who is to be feared. Rather, she imbues him with human qualities and shows him as a flawed being who was, nevertheless, loved and missed
know, not even some women themselves. Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton are nationally recognized authors and poets that advocate women’s rights, independence and beauty. Their work gives insight on what really defines a woman and as many have criticized their works they learn and agree with the messages behind it. Their work helps and teaches not only women but anyone who chooses to read how to embrace who you are inside and out. This essay will explore what defines a woman and what it takes to be
poems celebrate femininity and highlights the traits necessary for a women to be successful. The ladies in the poems are female-figures that carry themselves with high self-esteem and fearlessness. This essay identifies various literary techniques that describe feminine strength in Angelou and Clifton. Maya Angelou conveys a spirit of self-esteem through her images of acceptance. She embraces who she is and revels in her
the way the poems are meant to be viewed. In the poems, I chose, by Lucille Clifton, Molly Peacock, and Theodore Roethke ,“Forgiving My Father,” “Say You Love Me,” and “My Papa Waltz” they have common views, themes, and use many
Hoeflinger ENWR-106 14 October 2015 Essay 2 Holding onto grudges for a long period of time can sometimes make a person forget that there are some things you have to let go. Forgiveness is the understanding of situations and realizing that they may not be as serious as it was thought to be before. Just from the title of the poem, Forgiving My Father, it could be perceived as a poem that focuses on forgiveness, yet it’s main focus is on the negative qualities of Clifton 's father, who appears to have
without hatred everyone can do good for the world (Ackerman). Why hate people when you could be helping the world? I am not expecting you to love everyone. Both e.m. forster and I understand that it is impossible to love everyone. Although, in his essay Tolerance, he explains how it is possible to tolerate everyone and we should attempt to do that. As time grows you may end up making a new friend because you have someone a chance by tolerating them. Friends will help you in your journey of life.
Like Clifton, thanks to the Black Aesthetic, black women can now appreciate their bodies that were once judged and mocked for having curvaceous hips, full lips, and big hair, instead, these aspects of their appearances now can be described as queenlike, which is demonstrated in Clifton in the way that she owns her body and rejoices to the world the love for her body. In a poem titled “Beautiful
programmed humans desire this state since they associate success with perfection. For example, Lucille Clifton’s nostalgic poem, “At Last We Killed the Roaches,” illustrates a child's reflection on her past manipulated actions. Namely, the speaker discloses her revelation of her programmed nature. To elaborate, after exterminating roaches, the speaker points out, “...such cleanliness was grace when i was twelve” (Clifton 7-8). These lines reveal that during a naive time in her life, the speaker had murdered