Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York in 1936. She attended Howard University with a scholarship, and also studied at State University of New York. In 1958 she married Fred Clifton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Buffalo, and they had six children. Lucille’s first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. She was an employee in state and federal government positions until 1971, when she became a writer in residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland. Lucille wrote a number of poetry collections, as well as children’s books and a memoir. She was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. In 1999, she was elected as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets; as well, she served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. After a long battle with cancer, Lucille Clifton died on February 13, 2010, at the age of seventy-three. Photo by Dorothy Alexander.
A powerful poem about the making of a self – “born in Babylon” with no memory of a homeland, shaped by adversity, and whose very survival is a triumph to be celebrated. Continue reading →
