Photo by Bruce Mars
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
“won’t you celebrate with me” from The Book of Light, 1993 by Lucille Clifton. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
About 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.
