Niagara University Library: Monthly Book Spotlight -- April 2006

Wild Blessings:
The Poetry of Lucille Clifton
by
Hilary Holladay

image of Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton book cover

What do you think of when you think of April? Tulips and daffodils beginning to bloom? Finally leaving your heavy winter coat in your dorm room? Well, April is also National Poetry Month and so, the book spotlight for this month is Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton by Hilary Holladay.

Lucille Clifton was born and raised in the Buffalo area and has written many poetry and children's books and one prose book. She has won many awards, grants and fellowships and was most recently a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College in Maryland before retiring in the spring of 2005 (http://www.smcm.edu/aldiv/english/clifton.html).

Clifton's poetic voice, as Holladay aptly illustrates, is warm, witty and wise. She offers political and social critiques in ways that acknowledge our fallible human minds and hearts but doesn't accept them as an excuse for racism or sexism.

Here, she critiques the use of the term "inner city" to equal "bad neighborhood":

in the inner city
or
like we call it
home
we think a lot about uptown
and the silent nights
and the houses straight as
dead men
and the pastel lights
and we hang on to our no place
happy to be alive
and in the inner city
or
like we call it
home.

Holladay compares Clifton's work to Sylvia Plath's work because she deals with issues of living as a woman, specifically, about the body. Clifton and Plath both write about the issues of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, body image and sexuality. However, one major difference between these two famous poets' writing is that where Plath is cool, Clifton is warm and inevitably life-affirming despite troubles.

Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton by Hilary Holladay is shelved on the second floor of the Library at call number PS3553.L45 Z6 2004. The Library has some other books that contain Clifton's work, and you can locate them by searching the Library Catalog. Please do not hesitate to ask a reference librarian if you need assistance.

Jennifer Potter, a University of Buffalo student completing a practicum at the Library during the spring 2006 semester, wrote this Monthly Book Spotlight.