Clifton, Lucille

Lucille Clifton (nee Thelma Lucille Siles) was born in Depew, NY ^[12] and raised in Buffalo. She graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park High School in 1953. She attended Howard University with a scholarship from 1953 to 1955, later moved to New York State University in Fredonia (near Buffalo). ^[13]

In 1958, Lucille Siles married Fred James Clifton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Buffalo and a sculptor who portrayed the face of Africans. Lucille and her husband had six children, four daughters (Sidney, Frederick, Gillian and Alexia) and two sons (Channing and Graham). Lucille worked as a registrar at the New York State Employment Division in Buffalo (1958-60) and as a literary secretary for the Department of Education in Washington, DC (1960-71). Writer Ismael Rod introduced Lucy to Clifton when he organized the Buffalo Theater Workshop. Fred and Lucille Clifton took part in the staging of The Glass Menagerie , which Buffalo Evening News called "poetic and sensitive."

In 1966, Reed showed some verses to Clifton Langston Hughes , who included them in his anthology, The Poetry of the Negro.

In 1967, the Cliftones moved to Baltimore .

Lucille's first poetic collection, The Good Times, published in 1969, is listed on the New York Times as one of the top ten books of the year. From 1971 to 1974, Clifton was a resident poet at Coppins College in Baltimore . From 1979 to 1985, she was a Maryland State Poet Laureate . ^[14] In 1982–83, she was a guest writer at Columbia University's School of Art and George Washington University .

In 1984, her husband died of cancer.

From 1985 to 1989, Clifton was a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz . ^[15] She was also an emeritus professor of humanities at St. Mary's College Maryland. From 1995 to 1999 he was a visiting professor at Columbia University . In 2006 - Researcher at Dartmouth College .

Lucille Clifton withdrew her kinship roots to the West African kingdom of Dahomey , now the Republic of Benin . Mom told her: “Be proud, you are one of the women of Dahomey!” ^[16] She indicates among her ancestors the first black woman who was “officially hanged” for the murder in Kentucky during slavery in the United States . Girls in her family are born with an extra finger on each arm (a genetic feature known as polydactyly ). Lucille's extra fingers were amputated when she was a young child, which was common practice due to prejudice and social stigmatization. “Two ghostly fingers” and their activities became the theme in her poems and other works.

Her series of children's books about a young black boy began in the 1970s from the book “Some of the Days of Everett Anderson” (“Some Days of Everett Anderson”). Everett Anderson, a recurring character in many of her books, speaks a real African-American dialect and deals with the social problems of real life.

Her work is included in anthologies such as “My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry” (Arnold Adof), A Poem of Her Own: Voices of American Women Yesterday and Today (“Her Own Verse: Voices of American Women Yesterday and Today,” ed. By Catherine Clinton), “Black Stars: African American Women Writers” (ed. By Brenda Scott Wilkinson) and “Bedrock” : Writers on the Wonders of Geology "(" Root: Writers on the Miracles of Geology, "published by Trinity University).

Studies of her life and work carried out in publications include Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton (Wild Blessing: Poetry by Lucille Clifton, LSU Press, 2004, author Hilary Golladey), and Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters (Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters ”, Praeger, 2006, author Mary Jane Lapton).

Lucille Clifton received a scholarship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1970 and 1973, and a grant from the Academy of American Poets . She received the Randall Charity Prize, Jerome J. Shestak Prize from the American Poetry Review, and the Emmy Award . Her children's book Everett Anderson's Good-bye (Everett Anderson's Farewell) won the 1984 Coretti Scott King Award . In 1988, Clifton became the first author of two collections of poetry that made it to the Pulitzer Prize finals within one year. (The announcement of the finalists has been practiced since 1980.) She won the 1991/1992 Shelley Memorial Prize , the 1996 Lannan Literary Prize for Poetry , and the book Blessing the Boats: New and Collected Poems 1988-2000 (Blessing Boats: New and collected verses 1988-2000 ”) in 2000, the National Book Award for Poetry . From 1999 to 2005, Clifton was a member of the Council of Rectors of the Academy of American Poets. In 2007, she received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Award ; a reward in the amount of $ 100,000 is received by a living American poet whose "life achievements give the right to extraordinary recognition." Clifton posthumously received the Robert Frost Medal for Excellence from the Poetic Society of America. ^[17]

Poetry

• Good Times, New York: Random House, 1969
• Good News About the Earth, New York: Random House, 1972
• An Ordinary Woman, New York: Random House, 1974)
• Two-Headed Woman, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1980
• “Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir: 1969-1980”, Brockport: BOA Editions, 1987 - 1988 Pulitzer Prize finalist
• “Next: New Poems”, Brockport: BOA Editions, Ltd., 1987 - 1988 Pulitzer Prize finalist ^[18]
• Ten Oxherding Pictures, Santa Cruz: Moving Parts Press, 1988
• “Quilting: Poems 1987-1990,” Brockport: BOA Editions, 1991, ISBN 978-0-918526-81-6
• “The Book of Light,” Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1993
• "The Terrible Stories", Brockport: BOA Editions, 1996
• "Blessing The Boats: New and Collected Poems 1988-2000", Rochester: BOA Editions, 2000, ISBN 978-1-880238-88-2 ; Paw Prints, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4395-0356-0 - Winner of the National Book Award ^[19]
• Mercy, Rochester: BOA Editions, 2004, ISBN 978-1-929918-55-3
• Voices, Rochester: BOA Editions, 2008, ISBN 978-1-934414-12-5
• “The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton,” Rochester, BOA Editions, 2012 ISBN 978-1-934414-90-3

Children's books

• Three Wishes (Doubleday)
• “The Boy Who Didn'T Believe In Spring” (Penguin)
• The Lucky Stone. - Delacorte Press, 1979. - ISBN 978-0-440-05122-0 . ; Reprint Yearling Books, ISBN 978-0-307-53795-9
• “The Times They Used To Be” (Henry Holt & Co)
• “All Us Come Cross the Water” (Henry Holt)
• My Friend Jacob (Dutton)
• Amifika (Dutton)
• Sonora the Beautiful (Dutton)
• “The Black B C's” (Dutton)
• "The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children." Introduction by Lucille Clifton (San Val)

Everett Anderson Series

• Everett Anderson's Goodbye (Henry Holt)
• “One of the Problems of Everett Anderson” (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Friend (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Christmas Coming (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's 1-2-3 (Henry Holt)
• Everett Anderson's Year (Henry Holt)
• “Some of the Days of Everett Anderson” (Henry Holt)
• Everett Andersson's Nine Month Long (Henry Holt)

Documentary

• Generations: A Memoir, Random House, New York, 1976, ISBN 978-0-394-46155-7

• Holladay, Hilary, “Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton”, Louisiana State University Press, 2004 ISBN 978-0-8071-2987-6
• Lupton, Mary Jane. {{{title}}}. - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. - ISBN 0-275-98469-9 .

• Lucille Clifton (neopr.) . BOA Editions, Ltd. . Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Lucille Clifton (Biography and critical appreciation of her work, and links to poems ) . Poetry Foundation (November 18, 2017). Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Poetry Breaks for Schools and Libraries: Lucille Clifton; Since you asked .., with Lucille Clifton . openvault.wgbh.org . Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Poetry Breaks II, Lucille Clifton; Lucille Clifton reads Turning openvault.wgbh.org . Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Jean Toomer's “Cane” and the Rise of the Harlem Renaissance. " Essay by Lucille Clifton (Neopr.) . ragazine.cc/accessdate=2017-11-19 . (inaccessible link)
• "Lucille Clifton, A Poem About the Days Surrounding Sept. 11 " , PBS
• Lucille Clifton, Reading, May 21, 1996 - Video (English) , Lannan Podcasts (February 22, 2010). Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Lucille Clifton (neopr.) . www.english.illinois.edu . Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Lucille Clifton Academy of American Poets (February 4, 2014). Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• Library of Congress LCCN n79089567 lccn.loc.gov . Date of treatment November 19, 2017.
• FBI file on Lucille Clifton