LUCILLE CLIFTON (June 27, 1936 ~ February 13, 2010) — In Memoriam
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“oh children think about the
good times”
– Lucille Clifton
Courtesy Vox of Dartmouth
Poet Lucille Clifton
Clifton’s VOICES ~ Recipient of the National Book Award
Jay Rey: Lucille Clifton, honored poet from Buffalo, dies ~ The Buffalo News, February 14, 2010
Nick Madigan: Lucille Clifton, one-time poet laureate of Md., dies at 73 ~ Baltimore Sun, February 14, 2010
Dwayne Betts: In Memory of Ms. Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 – February 13, 2010) ~ The Atlantic, February 15, 2010
Lucille Clifton reads a poem about the days surrounding 9/11 ~ PBS News Hour
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There is a girl inside
There is a girl inside.
She is randy as a wolf.
She will not walk away and leave these bones
to an old woman.
She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.
She is a greeen girl in a used poet.
She has waited patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom
and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.
– Lucille Clifton
© Estate of Lucille Clifton
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Lucille Clifton at Wikipedia
Books by Lucille Clifton at Library Thing
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Courtesy photo
LUCILLE CLIFTON: 1936 – 2010
Beloved and admired friend and staff member, Lucille Clifton died Saturday, February 13. She had been invited back again to Squaw Valley this summer as a Special Guest. We had so looked forward to seeing her again. She had been a regular staff member since 1991 and continued to return almost every other year since then. She last taught in Squaw in 2008.
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LUCILLE CLIFTON: 1936 – 2010
Lucille was a major figure in American letters. She was an award-winning poet, fiction writer and author of children’s books. BOA Editions published her most recent collection, Mercy, as well as Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999, which won the 2000 National Book Award for Poetry. Two of Clifton’s BOA poetry collections, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems, were chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, while Clifton’s The Terrible Stories (BOA) was a finalist for the 1996 National Book Award. Clifton served as Distinguished Professor of Humanities and holder of the Hilda C. Landers Endowed Chair in the Liberal Arts at St. Mary’s College of Maryland until her retirement in the fall of 2005. She continued to serve St. Mary’s as Professor Emeritus and Friend to the College. She was appointed a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and elected as Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 1999. In 2007 she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which honors a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition. This year, 2010, she was awarded the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America to honor “distinguished lifetime service to American poetry.”At the Poetry Workshop in Squaw Valley, she was a warm and wise presence, a listener as well as a storyteller. She wrote new poems each day along with the other staff poets and participants, and even her rough drafts were fine examples of her work. Lucille composed her daily poems on a typewriter, working on one of Oakley Hall’s shabby IBM Selectrics.
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We still remember her final poem of the 2008 week, how it achieved what Lucille’s work did so well – three spare lines that captured the spirit of the previous night’s party at the Hall House, the week itself – and much more. That poem, the last, as it turned out, that we would see from our old friend, went something like this:
over the mountains
and under the stars it is
one hell of a ride
There is an empty place where once there was Lucille, but we are fortunate to have her words to help us fill it.
A Community of Writers scholarship to honor Lucille has been established. If you wish to contribute, please send donations made to Squaw Valley Community of Writers and mail to:
Squaw Valley Community of Writers
Clifton Scholarship
PO Box 1416
Nevada City, CA 95959
Tax ID: 23-7179177
Or visit JustGive.org and donate with a credit card.
www.squawvalleywriters.org
Courtesy photo
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