Lucille Clifton
Country: United States
Location: DePew, NY; Buffalo, NY; Baltimore, Maryland
ABOUT
Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936-February 13, 2010) was an American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979 to 1985, she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. Clifton was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Biography by Jaedyn Griddine
Lucille Clifton lived an impactful life. She had small beginnings in DePew, New York, born to creative parents. She attended two historically Black universities–Howard University for part of her undergraduate studies (she finished at SUNY Fredonia) and Coppin State as a poet-in-residence. While at Coppin State, she completed two works, Good News About the Earth (1972) and An Ordinary Woman (1974). She also served as a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland for a spell. She established roots in the Black art scene, befriending other creatives such as Langston Hughes and Ishmael Reed. Hughes actually went on to publish some of Clifton’s poems in his anthology Poetry of the Negro (1970). Throughout her life, Clifton published 13 poetry collections of her own, in addition to numerous children’s books–most which belonged to her widely-known Everett Anderson series–a memoir and a posthumous poetry collection. Her poems are known for their brevity and their ability to encapsulate the Black American condition. She tackled many pertinent social issues in her works, namely bigotry, social justice movements, women’s history, slavery, and even her own battles with cancer–all with a uniquely sensitive perspective intended to resonate with the Black community.
Collage of Lucille Clifton by Doriana Diaz.
Clifton raised a little Black community of her own as well, having six children with her husband Fred, and raising them in their home in Baltimore, Maryland, which is now known as The Clifton House. She wrote six of her poetry collections and her memoir in that house, which is currently being developed by her daughter, Sidney, into a community space for creatives. Lucille outlived two of her children and her husband. This, too, shaped her writing, as many of her works involved connecting and conversing with the dead, believing that the dead are always with us and interacting with our world. Her daughter, Sidney, explained that her mother’s presence is still felt in the Clifton House today, and her spirit certainly permeates through her writing. Her tremendous skill has not gone without praise; she’s won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2007), The National Book Award for her collection Blessing the Boats, the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize, and the Coretta Scott King award for Everett Anderson’s Goodbye. She was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. She served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Poet Laureate for the state of Maryland (1974-1985), in addition to being a spiritual and intellectual guide for readers, a loving and caring mother to her children, and a source of inspiration for fellow creatives.
The “Black Feminist Taught Me” project - a collaboration between Black Women Radicals and Philadelphia PrintWorks - honored the legacy of Lucille Clifton for the second iteration of the project, which celebrated Black feminist and Womanist writers, poets, and journalists from Baltimore, Maryland. The video below was filmed at The Clifton House, the home of Lucille and Fred Clifton in Baltimore. The Clifton House mission is to continue the legacy of acclaimed Poet Lucille Clifton and community activist Fred Clifton by providing mentorship, local and global resource access, training and development in the creative arts to underrepresented and underserved people of all ages in the Baltimore and surrounding communities, with particular focus on African diasporic, female and gender non-conforming, LGBTQA+ and international poets, writers, artists and creative activists.
Video by Kerrin Lyons.
Sources
Remembering Lucille Clifton by Elizabeth Alexander
The Clifton House: A Labor of Love and Legacy by Amy Stolls and Jessica Lynn
The Spirit Writing of Lucille Clifton by Marina Magloire
Recommended Resources
