Celebrated Poet Lucille Clifton to Read at BMC

Celebrated poet Lucille Clifton, 2007 recipient of the Poetry Foundation's highest honor, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, will give a reading at Bryn Mawr College on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ely Room of the Wyndham Alumnae House.

Since her first book of poems, Good Times, was selected by the New York Times as one of the best books of 1969, Clifton has won praise for the precision and economy of her language in poetry that often focuses on the strength required of African Americans to endure and succeed through harsh adversity.

Many of Clifton's poems, including the well-known "homage to my hips," are decidedly feminist in tone.

Clifton was the first African-American woman to win the Lilly prize. In announcing the award, selection committee chair Christian Wiman said, "Lucille Clifton is a powerful presence and voice in American poetry. Her poems are at once outraged and tender, small and explosive, sassy and devout. She sounds like no one else, and her achievement looks larger with each passing year."

The Lilly prize is the latest in a series of prestigious honors awarded to Clifton throughout her career.  Among them are a National Book Award, a Shelley Memorial Award, and a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.  Clifton was the first author to have two books of poetry selected as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in a single year.

Clifton is the author of 12 collections of poetry and one book of autobiographical prose, including Mercy; Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000 (recipient of the National Book Award); The Book of Light; Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize the same year her volume Next: New Poems was nominated) and Good Times.  

She has also published 19 children's books that have been lauded for their honesty and liveliness in helping children understand their world, many with a special focus on introducing children to African-American heritage.

In 1999, Clifton was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland and is currently Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

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