Poetry Friday--Lucille Clifton

The memory of Lucille Clifton was honored last Sunday at the Dodge Poetry Festival. Three of Clifton's daughters shared stories of their mother, while two poets read favorites from Clifton's works. The audience added to an already emotionally moving tribute by contributing stories of their encounters with Clifton. The session was videotaped, so, check the Dodge site in a few months to see if it is available for viewing. A short video from one of the past Dodge Festivals that Clifton attended is available here.

Although Lucille Clifton's poems appear in many anthologies in our collection, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980 [811 CLI], is the only one of her poetry books that we own. That will soon be remedied! On order we have The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965-2010, which was released in September. The book contains over 700 pages--full of poems!

Here's one of Clifton's poems that appears in the children's anthology, Pass It On: African-American Poetry for Children, selected by Wade Hudson [J 811 PAS]. It is the last poem in the book, and a line from it gives the book its title:

Listen Children

listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
keep it all ways

we have never hated black

listen
we have been ashamed
hopeless    tired    mad
but always
all ways
we loved us

we have always loved each other
children    all ways

pass it on

The Round-Up this week is being hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.... This is an especially busy week for Irene--her latest children's novel, Don't Feed the Boy, was published on Tuesday! Congratulations, Irene!