Voices, Lucille Clifton (poetry)

I first discovered Clifton’s poetry more than 20 years ago and treasured her work, reading every collection. But I had overlooked her two most recent books. After her death earlier this month, I decided to correct that.

Voices is Clifton’s final book. Throughout her life, she often gave voice to those who could not speak. Here, she continues to do so, albeit offering up some surprising choices. I don't recall her writing animal monologues before this. I was intrigued to read the prayers of dog, horse and raccoon, and I thought she captured perfectly the simmering anger voiced by Cream of Wheat of food product fame. Other voices include those of family and friends no longer living.

It is a gift, to throw their voices to us. The one that soared above the others and touched me most deeply, however, was Clifton’s own in the poem, "sorrows." In lines that recalled "the message from The Ones" in Mercy, she begins by comparing sorrows to angels:

who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be

beautiful . . .

Then she evokes an amazing image of them clicking/their bony fingers, before ending on a whisper:

. . . enough . . . not me again

but who can distinguish
one human voice

amid such choruses
of desire

It is an extraordinary poem that can be read in its entirety on the Poetry Foundation website.

Since Lucille Clifton’s death, much has been written about her. Elizabeth Alexander has a particularly touching tribute in the New Yorker.

If you have not read her work — or have not read it in awhile — I encourage you to do so. She will be missed, but her resilient and enduring voice can still be heard through her books, most of which are available through BOA Editors Ltd, her long-time publisher.

Mercy, Lucille Clifton (poetry)

In the poem, "here rests," after returning to care for their dying father, Clifton's sister Josephine turns to her:

when you poem this
and you will...
remember the Book of Job.

And though there was a suggestion of humor in that sisterly aside, there is a Job-like quality, an anguish, throughout Mercy, Clifton's 12th collection of poetry.

Lucille Clifton died on Feb. 13, after many health challenges. Published half a dozen years ago, Mercy reflects some of her struggles and works to transcend them.

Early in the collection, a poem begins:

surely i am able to write poems
celebrating grass and how the blue
in the sky can flow green or red

Then, of course, there is that inevitable "but." Anyone who has read Clifton's work knows that despite their accessibility and seeming simplicity of language, her poems are never that easy, as she acknowledges in this searing query at the end:

. . . why
is there under that poem always
an other poem?

In workshops, emerging poets are often warned against the use of certain words — words such as "soul" and "angel." Few poets have the voice, the moral authority, to pull them off. But Clifton did.

In the last long sequence titled "the message from The Ones (received in the late 70s)" she speaks of angels as a matter of fact, then provides this warning: They come disguised in the daily, and they:

will keep coming

unless you insist on wings

Clifton was an insightful and incisive poet, with many awards and honors to her credit. But I will most remember her for her generous spirit. I had the good fortune of spending time with her in the mid-90s when she did a number of readings in rural Minnesota, as part of a poetry residency. It was a bitterly cold winter, but everywhere she drew crowds — students, young families with small children, and writers of every stripe from the well-established to just-emerging. And she warmed us all with her poems and her presence.