Recently
I was deeply saddened to learn about the passing of a woman I so admired,
respected and appreciated. Born in 1936, Lucille Clifton, the extraordinary
African-American poet, whose compact, taut, yet rich and often heart-wrenching
poetry that packed so many inspiring punches, died on February
13, 2010 at
the age of 73.
Lucille Clifton
Photo from:
http://likeawhisper.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/bhm-lucille-clifton/
It is fitting in some way
that she died so close to Valentine’s Day, a day that is graphically depicted
with hearts and a day devoted to the sharing of declarations of love,
appreciation and affection. It is also a day when gifts are exchanged. Her valentine
and legacy to all of us was the rich and lasting canon of her beautiful body of
work.
I hope she enjoyed a glorious Valentine's Day, meeting once again those who went before, and whom she loved, including her husband and two of her children. There were many others -- too many perhaps.
An Imagined Reunion with Her Brother
In her poem “heaven,” from
The Terrible Stories, Copyright © 1996,
BOA Editions, Ltd., she talks about her
deceased brother:
“my brother is crouched at
the edge
looking down.
he has gathered a circle
of cloudy
friends around him
and they are watching the
world.”
She recalls how he used to
laugh at her when she tried to explain to him about the afterlife. And she
imagines him pointing toward her saying, “’she was my sister,” as she “feels”
him saying that “even when she was right, she was wrong.”
Clifton was right about so many things. Her poetic truths
spoke boldly and vividly to her readers and to those in her audience who had
the privilege of hearing her read her poetry aloud. I hope Clifton has already gathered her own circle of “cloudy
friends” to “watch the world” together.
Perhaps on the other side, her brother will greet her with pride in all that his brilliant sister accomplished during her time here. And perhaps as he watched the decades of her life unfold, he will have gained a new perspective and appreciation of the remarkable talents of such a strong and gifted sister who shared her indomitable spirit with the world.
My hope is that he will
welcome her and honor just how “right” she was about all manner of things and value,
as so many others do, her wonderful contributions to the landscape of American
poetry and her incalculable gifts to all who read her works.
Lucille and Her Return to the Light
After going through many trials with
illness throughout her life, Clifton ultimately died of a bacterial
infection. She slipped off the limiting bonds of her body – a body that suffered
injustices and hardships, much illness and pain – enabling her brilliant spirit
to soar to new and limitless heights. She loved that her name Lucille meant
“light.” I hope that the “light” to which she has returned is beyond any and
all expectations and beyond even the beauty and luminescence of her own exquisite
poetry.
I am sad that her strong
presence and sonorous voice will no longer be here to share the many beautiful
poetic songs of her rich experience, strong heart, and blessed imagination.
Clifton shared her insights about black and white, rich and poor, health and illness, about family and friends, love and poetry, nightmares and dreams,
triumphs and disappointments, blessings and tragedies, about life and suffering,
deep sadness and untold joy, about it all. Her wit, wry sense of humor,
strength, courage, clear sense of self, big heart and voice all came through
whenever she spoke either in person or through her poetry.
A return to "the light" - Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
The Joy of Hearing Her Voice Again
I just listened to a few
clips of her reading some of her poems and her spirit came so alive for me in
those readings. Just check out her reading of a well-known poem entitled “homage
to my hips” from Good Woman, Copyright © 1987, BOA Editions, Ltd., at http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15599.
What fun she must have had writing and reading that one. How wonderful that her
miraculous voice and the conviction and courage that it always conveyed will
still be with us to make listeners laugh and cry and dig deep into their own souls.
Just listen to her amazing
intonations as she speaks her poem “my dream about being white” from Next:
New Poems, Copyright © 1989, BOA Editions, Ltd. There is something so special just in the way
she says “hey.” History becomes “his – story.” And listen to how she reads the
last lines with such playfulness. Here is the link:
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21308.
Often there is great humor
and sharp wit in her poetry along with her deep insights. In “wishes for sons,”
from Quilting, Copyright © 1991, BOA
Editions, Ltd., she plays with the
idea of sons experiencing some of the pain and embarrassment of what some
daughters have felt. And she does it with such humor and sarcastic irony. Check
out the poem at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15601.
In “sisters,” from Good
Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, Copyright © 1987, she wrote a poem for a friend on her friend's birthday. Check
out her reading and the fun she has sharing it at http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/pprmMID/21307.
Listen to her dramatic emphasis on the word “loving” and her plaintive and
emphatic voice in the repeat of the phrase “loving ourselves.”
The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival -- A Place to Fall in Love with Poets
I met Lucille Clifton several
times at The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival held in beautiful Waterloo Village in NJ. I first met her there in September of 2000. I know because
that is the date she inscribed in a book of her poetry that I have come to love
and cherish called Blessing the Boats.
In it she wrote, “For Donna, Joy! Lucille” And then she signed it “Lucille
Clifton 9/2000.”
At each poetry festival I
have attended, I have fallen in love with one or two new poets – new for me
that is -- whose poetry resonated deeply for me. That year I fell in love with both
Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty, whose poem “Beau” and his love of dogs endeared
him to me along with his brilliant gifts for writing both poetry and prose. For
anyone who loves dogs, I highly recommend his beautifully written, poignant
book called Dog Years. It’s
especially wonderful for anyone who has loved and lost a cherished dog. And, of
course, I would recommend all his poetry.
At an earlier poetry
festival, I fell in love with the incomparable Stanley Kunitz, whose powerful,
resonant voice filled the huge poetry tent with power and grace despite his
slender build and advanced age. His brilliance was extraordinary, and he, too,
shared many deep secrets of his heart. Like Clifton, he found inspiration in his fractured
childhood.
I felt sad at his passing, but there was also a kind of joy and
fondness I felt at all he had achieved in his fruitful and lengthy life. He died when he was 100 years old. A framed picture of him within a gorgeous
lavender garden graces one of the shelves in my office.
Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
The "Moonchild" Reveals Some Dark Secrets
At the festival, poets
give workshops and talks during the day. Then at night, there are readings. On Saturday
evening, the highlight of the festival, some of the brightest and best poetic stars are
selected to share a sampling of their works.
That night, shortly after Clifton climbed the stairs to the stage, I fell in love with her voice, her rich sense
of humor, the range of subject in her poetry and the simple, yet graceful way
she shared her deep hurts and huge insights. As she read her poetry, each like
a petal on a gorgeous flower, listeners began to understand how magnificently
she had spun heart-wrenching pain into such golden works of art. She was
uncovering hurts and secrets, grief and longing, and so much pain, petal-by-petal and poem-by-poem. And of course, in her montage, there was always humor
nestled within to lighten the darkness and soften the blows.
Petal-by-petal and poem-by-poem - Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
Perhaps the poem she read
that day that whispered the loudest to me was “moonchild” from New Poems, Copyright © 2000, BOA
Editions, Ltd. In “moonchild” she is talking about the moon, her childhood and
some dark and haunting remembrances of her father:
"the moon understands dark places,
the moon has secrets of her own.
she holds what light she can."
Dark places and dark
secrets indeed. In the penultimate paragraph of the poem, Clifton writes:
“we girls were ten years
old and giggling
in our hand-me-downs. we
wanted breasts,
pretended that we had
them, tissued
our undershirts. jay johnson
is teaching
me to french kiss, ella
bragged, who
is teaching you? how do
you say; my father?”
And she concludes:
“the moon is queen of
everything.
She rules the oceans,
rivers, rain.
When I am asked whose
tears these are
I always blame the moon.”
In her poem “what did she
know, when did she know it,” from The
Terrible Stories, Copyright © 1996, BOA Editions, Ltd., Clifton wonders what her mother knew and when in a
chilling recollection:
“in the evenings
what it was the soft tap
tap
into the room the cold curve
of the sheet arced off
the fingers sliding in
and the hard clench
against the wall”
She talks about the “cold
air” and “cold edges” and why she never smiled as a little girl as she thinks
about how mothers are “supposed to know everything” and wonders what her mother did know and “when did she know it.”
Clifton Voices Her Honest Feelings about Cancer and Kidney Disease
In her poetry, Clifton talks about her children, living and dead, born and unborn, with a fierce honesty. And she writes a number of poems about illness
and what she personally experienced. She suffered from several bouts of cancer
and wrote a poem about her lumpectomy. For a year she was on dialysis and
suffered from kidney disease following her remission from cancer. Having a
life-threatening kidney disease on the heels of her battles with cancer seemed for Clifton to be the Universe’s ultimate insult.
It was one of her
daughters, Alexis, who donated her kidney to Clifton. We are all blessed that she did, enabling Clifton to have more time to share her beautiful gifts and
voice.
In her poem “dialysis,” from
New Poems, Copyright © 2000, BOA Editions,
Ltd., Clifton writes:
“we are not supposed to
hate
the dialysis unit. we are not
supposed to hate the
universe.
this is not supposed to
happen to me.
after the cancer the body
refused
to lose any more. Even the poisons
were claimed and kept.”
She dreams that “a house
is burning” and that “something crawls out of the fire cleansed and purified.” In
her dream, she calls it “light.” After suffering with cancer, she was “so grateful
to be alive.” And she still has great passion and spirit: “I am alive and
furious.” But she wonders in the final line of the poem about this latest blow
to her health: “blessed be even this?”
Cleansed and purified by "light" - "I am alive and furious" - Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
In a wonderful interview
with English Professor Hilary Holladay, on April 11, 1998, Clifton responded to Holladay's comments about the anger, sorrow and uncertainty in her poetry
along with its affirmations and celebrations. Clifton talked about her then upcoming book of poetry that
friends were saying sounded very dark.
(To see the full interview, go to
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=179624.)
Holladay, author of a book on Clifton's Poetry called Wild Blessings:
The Poetry of Lucille Clifton, asked if Clifton thought her forthcoming book of poems was
indeed dark, and here’s what Clifton
said: “I have a poem about dialysis, for instance. I was on dialysis. And it
ends, something about ‘i am alive and furious,’ and then it ends with a
question, ‘blessed be even this?’ [Some critics] would expect of me, ‘blessed
be even this.’ Well, I’m not sure about that. You know, dialysis is not fun.
Kidney failure is not fun’.”
In her poem “donor,” from New Poems, Copyright © 2000, BOA
Editions, Ltd., Clifton describes with unflinching honestly how she felt
and what she did when she conceived Alexia, the daughter who so graciously
donated her kidney to her mother:
“i think of the pills, the
everything
i gathered against
your inconvenient bulge;
and you
my stubborn baby child,
hunched there in the dark
refusing my refusal.”
And Clifton worries:
“suppose my body does say
no
to yours. again, again i feel you
buckled in despite me,
lex,
fastened to life like the
frown
on an angel’s brow.”
I found it so interesting
to learn that her daughter Alexia had donated her kidney to Clifton during a week when a friend of mine who lives in Missouri recently donated her kidney to her
husband. Cindy and her husband Phil are both doing wonderfully well. Giving a kidney is a true gift of love and also a gift of life. Clifton had more than her ample share of rich life material
to mine for her poetry and she bravely shared it with her bold truth.
The Persistent Red Fox that Followed, Scared and Inspired Clifton -- Her Totem Animal
She wrote a series of
poems about a fox that kept showing up where she lived when she lived in Maryland. She did understand the importance of that
visitation and that it was representative of some larger spiritual message. The
fox, she knew, was her totem animal.
Red Fox - Lucille Clifton's Totem Animal
Totem animal or not, sent
by Spirit or not, Clifton was really afraid of this red fox. And I can’t say
that I blame her. I once saw a red fox while walking my dog in a wide open park
and it scared me too. I wasn’t sure how I would defend either myself or my dog
against the fox should the fox have decided to come our way instead of look at
us, turn and scamper off. The fox was, though, very beautiful to see.
In the interview with Holladay, she tells a very humorous story about the fox:
Holladay asked, "Was the fox coming here?" Clifton responds, “No, it was in St.
Mary’s County. I have an apartment there when I’m teaching in southern Maryland. I’m here only some weekends and summertime. And I
know I’m supposed to think, ‘What a wonderful thing, a fox, my totem’ — all
that. I was petrified! I was afraid of the fox! [laughter] My students get so
upset when I say that. Lucille Clifton isn’t supposed to [be afraid]; she’s
supposed to [love] all living creatures. Sometimes even the creatures seem to
think so. Because creatures come to me all the time. However, I’m afraid of them.
Holladay then asked, "What happened to that fox?"Said Clifton, "I don't know. I finally moved, since I could not bear this fox! My friend was moving, my dear friend who’s just had her first book
published; she had been a student of mine. Her name is Anne Caston. She’s a
wonderful poet, an amazing poet. Anyway, she was moving, too. So we decided to
move to this new apartment complex in St. Mary’s County. And she moved so that
her apartment backed up to mine. But at the last moment, I said, ‘Well, Anne, I’ve
got a fireplace in mine, and you don’t have one.’ She has children, so I
thought the fireplace would be nicer for a family with kids. And so we changed
apartments; we exchanged.
"Well! The first night we were there, the fox comes to her apartment! A fox.
Who knows if . . . I choose to believe it was the same fox. And Anne -- this is
why I love this woman -- she came out of the door and said, “She moved around
there!” And the fox got up and trotted around to my apartment and spent the
night there and then left and was never seen again."
Clifton said she recognized the honor in the fox’s visit,
but she was glad that it had finally left. She did, however, continue to wonder
what the import of those visits meant and what she was supposed to understand.
As
an animal totem, the fox is cunning and is also a shapeshifter. On the website, http://animalspirits.ladyinblack.com/fox_spirit.htm,
it says that the fox can be a master teacher. The fox can bring “a quickening
of your mental and physical response to problems that you face” and it can
usher in “a great time of learning.” The fox can also help increase intuitive
abilities and “can bring extraordinary dream teachings and creativity.”
It
is very interesting that Clifton
transformed her fox visitations into poetry and also spun some of her dreams
into poems. Perhaps both Spirit and the persistent fox accomplished what
they had set out to do: inspire and teach and get Clifton to notice some deeper meanings about what was
going on in her life.
Deep "Sorrows" and Clifton's Pearls of Poetry
Like so many poets, Clifton's life was filled with many sorrows. Yet despite
all the hardships and extraordinarily difficult experiences in her life, she,
like a Phoenix, not only rose above them as best she could, but she gave voice
to them and wove them into lustrous poems, like pearls on a necklace, for all
to see. And those pearls of wisdom provided deep inspiration for others to
conjure up similar strength, tenacity and hope even in the face of such
daunting challenges to overcome. In her poem “sorrows,” from Poetry, Copyright ©2007, she writes:
“who would believe them
winged
who would believe they
could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love
with mortals
that they would attach
themselves
as scars attach and ride
the skin”
And as she cries into her “cupped
hands,” saying “enough,” she wonders how, oh how, she could be chosen yet again
for another deep sorrow. To see the full text of the poem, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180005.
Some Personal Encounters with Lucille Clifton
The first time I met
Lucille Clifton, I had gone through a very difficult life experience several
years before when I almost lost my lifemate to a near-fatal stroke. A professor
of English, he had made it through about a year later to a near perfect
recovery. He was with me, enjoying the glorious September day at Waterloo Village, as we were standing in line together to get my Blessing the Boats book signed. I was thankful and grateful for the
special day and for the rich poetry that we were sharing and enjoying.
When my turn in line came
to have Clifton sign my book, I was wondering, given the difficult
life challenge that I had experienced, how she managed to come up with the
fortitude and inner strength to keep persevering in the face of such daunting
life experiences. She smiled, said a few inspirational words, downplaying any
extraordinary qualities in the way she lived her life, and then she wrote the
inscription “Joy!” in my book.
I saw her again a few years
later not too long after my lifemate’s sudden death on a New York City subway on his way to teach a graduate Shakespeare
class. Still fragile at the time, I went up to her and reminded her of our
brief conversation years before and told her of my recent loss. She opened her
arms and gave me a beautiful hug that I will never forget.
I remember too that it was
at that poetry festival, a smaller one held on a sweeping prep school campus in
NJ, that she and other poets had written
magnificent poems about 9-11 and the terrible tragedy our country and those at
The World Trade Center Towers had suffered. Her poem was striking, and I recall
thinking that once again she had created, as Keats would say, “a thing of
beauty,” something so deeply moving that had sprung from such immeasurable
tragedy and grief.
Moving Forward in the Face of Life's Challenges
and Riding Triumphantly Down the Highway of Her Life
The answer to my question
about moving forward in the face of such adversity was that despite all Clifton had suffered, it was joy -- the joy of this
gorgeous gift of life -- that kept her going and inspired her day by day.
It was the inspiration of family and friends,
children and grandchildren, of past and present, of poets and poetry festivals,
of laughing and crying, of songs and gatherings and the workings of the heart
and soul. It was her love of teaching, creating and sharing and her family, friends, students and fans that kept her
spirit thriving.
Illuminating the mysteries of foxes and fears, dreams and
nightmares, surmounting challenges of both her past and present and finding the
courage and will to keep moving on despite all that had been thrown on her
extraordinary path – all of that propelled her forward. I think she said it
best in her magical poem “hag riding,” from The
Terrible Stories, Copyright ©1996, BOA Editions, Ltd.:
“why
is what I ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in
me
still trying to get home
after all these years”
When she wakes “to the
heat of morning,” she envisions herself “galloping down the highway” of her life.
And she concludes with her bold and inspirational images:
“something hopeful rises
in me
rises and runs me out into
the road
and i lob my fierce thigh
high
over the rump of the day
and honey
i ride i ride”
The hope of a new day - Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
I still can get tears in
my eyes when I read it because that short poem packs such power. I feel the
heat and intensity of her day and her deep longings. She has been around for
awhile as she shares in her phrase “all these years.” Yet she is not tired.
Her spirit and enthusiasm for life are still so powerful.
She takes all of us
with her as she gallops down the highway of her life. Life is happening quickly and passing very fast. She is taking the reins of her life and not sitting back passively or resting on her laurels. No, she is galloping through for the ride of her life. Despite so many life challenges, there is something “hopeful” that
emerges within her. And it is strong.
With that line, she
uplifts the heart of the reader. Suddenly there is not only heat, but light
shining in. And with both physical and emotional power and the sturdy structure
of her rich verse, she takes us all on her ride as she “lobs” her “fierce thigh
high over the rump of the day.”
And together we cheer her on as we watch her
galloping away. We are left awed and
inspired to take our own daring rides with passion and gusto despite life’s
hardships and our intermittent longing “to get home.”
Wherever she is, I hope
she is continuing to “lob her fierce thigh high” and “ride” oceans of clouds
and light as she continues to explore the mystical meaning of light and dark
and of life and death. I am so grateful to have met her and to have heard her read her
poetry aloud. I am glad, too, that her inimitable voice has been captured for
all to still savor and enjoy. As she wished for me, I, too, wish her “Joy!”
My heart goes out to her
family members and close friends whose hearts must be broken at losing such a
brilliant light in their lives. My hope is that they will find some consolation in
knowing how many lives and hearts she touched in her lifetime and what an
inspiration she has been to so many.
For me, the world is not quite the same without her physically in it. And it is sad for me to think that she has written her final poem. In some ways, her life and how she lived it with such honesty and passion is her final poem for the world to savor. I believe that wherever her spirit is, Clifton is finding great joy in her new-found freedom and final release from pain and illness.
She has sailed in her lifetime with
such grace, beauty, mystery and artistry “through this to that.” As in "blessing the boats (at St. Mary's)," from Quilting, Copyright© 1991, BOA Editions, Ltd., I wish for Lucille Clifton tides that "carry her out beyond the face of fear" and wind that will love her back as she kisses and then turns from it. May she open her eyes to see "water water waving forever." And may her passage from "this to that" be as exciting as her inspirational journey here where she galloped with such brilliance and bravery down the highway of her amazing life.
"Water, water, waving forever" - Photo by Donna Poler, Copyright © 2010, all rights reserved.
Donna Poler, M.A.
Alternative Health
Consultant for People and their Pets
Certified Tellington
TTouch® Practitioner
Certified Usui Reiki Master
Animal Communicator
Angel Energy Lightworker
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Reader
Writer and Author of
forthcoming E-book, “100 Plus Tips for Maintaining a Happy and Healthy Dog”
(646) 915-9415
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