FOR LUCILLE CLIFTON & PROGENY

To my poet friends,

and to those who inspire our words:

We have lost our mother,

but then, not prior to

gaining the life strands

she handed over to us.

And as we breathe,

copiously breed our words,

recall divine capacity

to raise up from stones

children, and with this,

know to drench ourselves

in what flows through

ancestral wombs, seeing to

the signing of our names.

2/16/10

Ruth-Miriam Garnett

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Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from New York. Common topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African American heritage, and feminist themes, with particular emphasis on the female body. She was the first person in her family to finish high school and attend college. She started Howard University on scholarship as a drama major but lost the scholarship two years later. Thus began her writing career. "Good Times", her first book of poems, was published in 1969. She has since been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and has been honored as Maryland's Poet Laureate.

Ruth-Miriam Garnett I will share this poem on our Lucille Clifon page -- thanks!

One of the reviewers liken Clifton's poetic voide to that of Langston Hughes I agree, accessible yet deceptive simple (imho)

http://aalbc.com/authors/lucille_clifton.html

Finally a poem I get!

homage to my hips

by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don't fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!