An Appreciation of Lucille Clifton
The Root's Hollis Robbins shows love for poet Lucille Clifton, former Poet Laureate of the State of Maryland (1979-1985), who died on Saturday, February 13, 2010, in Baltimore.
Lucille Clifton’s poetry is generally described by scholars and fellow poets as concise, lean, spare, direct, unadorned, economical, deceptively simple, deceptively slight, and deceptively evanescent. Her deceit is in her brevity. Like Emily Dickinson, to whom she is often compared in style, though not subject, she astonishes with very few—and often very short—lines. Clifton refuses capital letters and often refuses punctuation. Her words sit quietly on the page even while the meanings of the words pounce on the unsuspecting reader.
This article was written on 16 Feb 2010, and is filled under Culture Finds.
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