{"id":152995,"date":"2026-06-27T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T12:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152995"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T21:03:05","slug":"152995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152995","title":{"rendered":"“[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s her birthday today. <\/p>\n

Rita Dove said of Lucille Clifton’s body of work: <\/p>\n

In contrast to much of the poetry being written today\u2014-intellectualized lyricism characterized by an application of inductive thought to unusual images\u2014-Lucille Clifton\u2019s poems are compact and self-sufficient…Her revelations then resemble the epiphanies of childhood and early adolescence, when one\u2019s lack of preconceptions about the self allowed for brilliant slippage into the metaphysical, a glimpse into an egoless, utterly thingful and serene world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an example, here is the stunning poem she wrote two days after 9\/11. Such simple words, such a simple structure – and yet what a huge outpouring of feeling. This is the kind of thing a Poet Laureate would do, express the grief, express what we all were feeling about firemen in those horrible days and weeks following the attack. And yet the poem feels almost “tossed off” – and maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t – either way: sometimes it takes a LOT of effort to create something seemingly so effortless. I wept openly the first time I read it. <\/p>\n

Thursday 9\/13\/01<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n

the firemen<\/p>\n

ascend
\nin a blaze of courage
\nrising
\nlike jacob’s ladder
\ninto the mouth of
\nhistory
\nreaching through hell
\nin order to find
\nheaven
\nor whatever the river jordan
\nis called
\nin their heroic house<\/p>\n

The Academy of American Poets creates these wonderful small videos called “Poetry Break.” A poet sits and reads one poem, maybe prefacing it with a couple of sentences about the writing of it. Nothing too elaborate. It’s a “poetry break”. A meditative moment where you can put your focus on something else, lose yourself in the worlds created by another’s words. <\/p>\n

Here is one featuring Lucille Clifton, and interestingly enough (considering what I just wrote above about how her poem feels like it poured out of her in one “take”), she prefaces the reading of this title-less poem with a couple of words about how this was the easiest poem she ever wrote. It tumbled out of her. <\/p>\n