Climbing

A woman precedes me up the long rope.

Her dangling braids the color of rain.

Maybe I should have had braids.

Maybe I should have kept the body I started,

Slim and possible as a boy's bone.

Maybe I should have wanted less.

Maybe i should have ignored the bowl in me

Burning to be filled.

Maybe I should have wanted less.

The woman passes the notch in the rope

Marked Sixty. I rise toward it, struggling,

Hand over hungry hand. 

Climbing” is the first original poem in Lucille Clifton’s collection The Book of Light, published by Copper Canyon Press, in 1993. It is in a section titled “Reflection,” which comes directly after a found poem, “Light.” In a lyric of twelve short lines, Clifton uses simple, accessible language to imagine what it would be like to be sixty years old. The speaker imagines herself in the future and uses that image to make statements to herself about what might have been different in her life. The poem’s tone, however, is not one of despair but rather of achievement. The speaker doesn’t really wish she had made other choices; rather, she seems proud of the decisions she has made and acknowledges the struggle ahead as she ages. Themes that the poem addresses include the relationship between ageing and desire, time and regret, and the ways in which self-image changes as human beings age. Clifton was in her mid-fifties when she wrote the poem, and there is much autobiographical material in it. The title of the collection could just as easily have been called The Book of Lucille, as Lucille derives from the Latin word lucius, meaning “light.” Many of the poems in the collection address family members, both dead and alive, and a few poems address political figures, such as Senator Jesse Helms, and fictional figures, such as Clark Kent. Some are dramatic monologues, others confessional lyrics. All of the poems are marked by revelation and insight and evoke universal experiences to appeal to readers.

Good Times

My daddy has paid the rent

And the insurance man is gone

And the lights is back on

And my uncle brud has hit

For one dollar straight

And they is good times

Good times

Good times

My mama has made bread

And grampaw has come

And everybody is drunk

And dancing in the kitchen

And singing in the kitchen

Of these is good times

Good times

Good times

Oh children think about the

Good times 

This poem is rather simple, but has an important message. The speaker comes across as an older person, most likely a woman, who has perhaps lived through some tough times. These rough times however, make the simple, ordinary times appear to be that much better in comparison. It is these good times that should be remembered, which the speaker advises children as she looks back at her life, for perhaps she is lying on her death bed.

Because the speaker is an older person, it gives the poem a little more meaning. Coming from someone elderly, the poem has more truth, more validity - an 85 year old woman has the necessary experience, knowledge, and wisdom (that a 35 year old does not) to be making these suggestions on how to look at one's life.

The syntax of this poem suggests that the speaker is not very educated, for only names are capitalized, there is no sentence structure, no punctuation, etc. This literary device layers another meaning onto the poem, suggesting that good times are not restricted to the wealthy, privileged individuals who have higher educations, and whose "good times" are more extravagant than others' may be. "Good times" are the simple times, the pleasant, true times that make one happy.

The fact that only the names are capitalized may also point out that these people, all members of the family, are around during each of these happy memories. This may imply that "good times" are those spent with family.

Repetition is the most obvious aspect of the poem, for "good times" is repeated seven times throughout this 18-line poem. It is repeated for a simple reason, too - to emphasize the fact that the good times are those that should be thought of often and kept in our memories forever. Not bad times, tough times, confusing times, prideful times, or any other kind of times - no, just the good times. 

Homage To My Hips

"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."

All throughout this poem, Lucille Clifton very clearly illustrates a strong idea of symbolism regarding her “hips”. As mentioned in her introduction, Clifton is renowned for alluding to both African American and women’s resilience to oppression both socially and politically. For this poem, the latter is obviously more pertinent. The reader must first notice the focal point of the poem being the hips; however, these “hips” symbolize much more. They symbolize all the strength that all women possess and could use to further their influence in the world. Although Clifton does allude to them being her “hips”, she is merely speaking on behalf of all females. 

This poem discusses Clifton’s hips, and how they are free from the certain views of society that she does not agree on as well as how she is proud of her “hips” and respects herself regardless. She uses word choice and personification to describe ways her hips stand for what she believes in. Clifton declares that she will not abide by the rules society has created for her physically, ethnically, or sexually. 

In the first few lines of her poem, Clifton rebels against the views of physical beauty made by society. She says, “these hips are big hips,” and by doing so says that she is not the image of perfection yet she is still proud of herself (1). She will not be ashamed of how she looks just because at the time society expected women to look a certain way, that way being thin She goes on to say that “they need space/to move around in” (2, 3). Here, space physical and emotional space. Meaning, she not only is larger than the ideal “American” woman, but she also has big emotions. Clifton says her hips won’t “fit into little/petty places” (4, 5). When she says this, she means will not conform to the small ideas of man. She ignores the narrow-mindedness of society and still stands tall and proud, no matter the size of her hips. Clifton takes a stand for her ethnicity in the next lines of her poem. When she says “these hips/are free hips/they don’t like to be held back,” 

Clifton then goes on to write, “these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do” (8-10). These lines symbolize an unrestrained freedom from guidance and censorship that enable women to lead their own lives. Finally to close out the poem, Clifton mentions the influence (or manipulation) that women can use over their male counterparts: “I have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top” (13-15). Clifton realizes that the male may always be the head, but women can always manipulate him into getting or doing whatever they want. However light, Clifton’s strong use of imagery of words in this poem display to the reader (regardless of gender) the empowerment of woman with the use of something as simple as “hips.” 

Background

Lucille Clifton traced her family's roots to the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin. Growing up she was told by her mother, "Be proud, you're from Dahomey women!"[9] She cites as one of her ancestors the first black woman to be "legally hanged" for manslaughter in the state of Kentucky during the time of Slavery in the United States. Girls in her family are born with an extra finger on each hand, a genetic trait known as polydactyly. Lucille's two extra fingers were amputated surgically when she was a small child, a common practice at that time for reasons of superstition and social stigma. Her "two ghost fingers" and their activities became a theme in her poetry and other writings. Health problems in her later years included painful gout which gave her some difficulty in walking. 

prolific and widely respected poet, Lucille Clifton's work emphasizes endurance and strength through adversity, focusing particularly on African-American experience and family life. Awarding the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to Clifton in 2007, the judges remarked that “One always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton’s poems—it is a moral quality that some poets have and some don’t.” 

The optimism that shapes Clifton’s poetry is nourished by her deep spiritual beliefs. While she often invokes Christian motifs and biblical references in her poems, she draws freely upon other values and beliefs as well. “The black God, Kali / a woman God and terrible / with her skulls and breasts” often appears in her poems, as do references to African goddesses like Yemoja, the Yoruba water-deity, and to Native American beliefs. More specifically, Clifton’s invocation of the “two-headed woman” of African American folk belief, with its overtones of Hoodoo and conjure, makes plain her commitment to other ways of knowing and understanding the world. Certainly the spiritual dimension of her poetry has deepened since the death of her husband, Fred Clifton, in 1984. Whether her poetry is exploring the biological changes within her own body or imagining the death of the Sioux chief Crazy Horse, Lucille Clifton’s world is both earthy and spiritual. In her capacity as both witness and seer, she looks through the madness and sorrow of the world, locating moments of epiphany in the mundane and ordinary. And her poetry invariably moves toward those moments of calm and tranquillity, of grace, which speak to the continuity of the human spirit. 

Biography

Lucille Clifton (born Thelma Lucille Sayles) grew up in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park High School in 1953.She went on to study on a scholarship at Howard University from 1953 to 1955, and after leaving over poor grades, studied at the State University of New York at Fredonia (near Buffalo). 

Lucille Clifton's poems are compact and self-sufficient...Her revelations then resemble the epiphanies of childhood and early adolescence, when one's lack of preconceptions about the self-allowed for brilliant slippage into the metaphysical, a glimpse into an egoless, utterly thankful and serene world. Common topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African American heritage, and feminist themes, with particular emphasis on the female body 

In 1969 Ms Clifton’s first book, a collection of poetry entitled Good Times was published and The New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books. Clifton worked in state and federal government positions until 1971, when she became a writer in residence at the Historically Black College Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland. Remaining at Coppin until 1974, she produced two further books of poetry, Good News About the Earth (1972) and An Ordinary Woman (1974). From 1982 to 1983 she was visiting writer at Columbia University School of the Arts and at George Washington University. Afterwards she taught literature and creative writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1985) and then at St. Mary's College of Maryland. 

Clifton's later poetry collections include Next: New Poems (1987), Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 (1991), and The Terrible Stories (1996). Generations: A Memoir (1976) is a prose piece celebrating her origins, and Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir: 1969-1980 (1987) collects some of her previously published verse. 

Clifton's many children's books, written expressly for an African-American audience in mind, include All Us Come Cross the Water (1973), My Friend Jacob (1980), and Three Wishes (1992). She also wrote an award-winning series of books featuring events in the life of Everett Anderson, a young black boy. These include- Some of the Days of Everett Anderson (1970) and Everett Anderson's Goodbye (1983). 

Her children's books now total over 20. Besides appearing in over 100 anthologies of poetry, she has come to popular attention through television appearances on the "Today Show", "Sunday Morning", with Charles Kuralt, "Nightline" and Bill Moyers' series, "The Power of the Word". 

She received a Creative Writing Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1970 and 1973, and a grant from The American Academy of Poets. She has received the Shelley Memorial Prize, the Charity Randall prize, the Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review, and an Emmy Award. In 1988, she became the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize She received a Creative Writing Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1970 and 1973, and a grant from The American Academy of Poets. She has received the Shelley Memorial Prize, the Charity Randall prize, the Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review, and an Emmy Award. In 1988, she became the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize (Good Woman: and Next :). She is the author of numerous children's books and books of poetry, including The Book of Light, Next, terrible stories, Two Headed Woman and Good News About the Earth. She has been the Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland from 1991 to the present, and lives in Columbia Maryland and has raised six children. After a long battle with cancer, Lucille Clifton died on February 13, 2010, at the age of 73.