“Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.”

miss rosie

when I watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when I watch you
in your old man’s shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week’s grocery
I say
when I watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman
who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
I stand up
through your destruction
I stand up

Lucille Clifton

~~

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

Lucille Clifton

~~

“It was not the animal blood I was hiding from, it was the poet in her…& the terrible stories she could tell.” ~Lucille Clifton

**More Clifton poems here.

Lucille Clifton, one-time poet laureate of Md., dies at 73.

First memory:  Senior year at Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School, I entered a short story contest for Baltimore Artscape 1990, judged by Lucille Clifton.  I thought I would write fiction.  Clifton chose my story as the city-wide winner, award given by Mayor Kurt Schmoke at Artscape.  After I won, I began investigating this poet who selected my story, read her work, and was hooked.  Inspired me throughout my years as a Women’s Studies major at Towson University and onward.  Thank you, Lucille Clifton for your generosity and indomitable spirit.

~~~

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