9780241609019

PENGUIN PRESS M O D E R N

Lucille Clifton

Toni Morrison

Lucille Clifton was one of the most distinguished and beloved American poets of the twentieth century. This award-winning collection of her poems showcases the simplicity and song-like grace with which she addressed the whole of human experience: birth, death, children, dreams, spirituality, womanhood, illness, sexuality and racial injustice.

‘Physically small poems with enormous and profound inner worlds’ Elizabeth Alexander, New Yorker ‘Clifton’s earliest poems could have been written yesterday, and her later works could have been written decades ago’ Reginald Dwayne Betts, The New York Times

Cover artwork: © Romare Bearden Sirens’ Song, 1978 Color silkscreen 21.50” x 18.75”.

Image courtesy of the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Gift of Warren Shaw, 2017.04.005.

Photography by Greg Staley, 2018. © 2022 Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed

by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY and DACS, London.

Author photograph © Mark Lennihan/AP/ Shutterstock

Lucille Clifton Blessing The Boats

•Estimated •Confirmed FORMAT

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Coated Cover Board

‘A poetry so pared down that its spaces take on substance, become a shaping presence as much as the words themselves’ Peggy Rosenthal

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PENGUIN

Poetry

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MO D E R N C L A S S I C S

I S B N 978-0-241-60901-9

Date: 07/12/2022 Designer: Jim/Æ Prod. Controller: Katy Banyard ED1: Chloe Currens Pub. Date: ISBN: 9780241609019 SPINE WIDTH: 9 MM

Blessing The Boats

‘The love readers feel for Lucille Clifton – both the woman and her poetry – is constant and deeply felt’

C L A S S I C S

Blessing The Boats

07/12/2022 17:15

P EN G UI N M O DER N C L A S S I CS

Blessing the Boats Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) was one of the most distinguished, decorated and beloved poets of her time. She won the National Book Award for Poetry for Blessing the Boats and was the first African American female recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement from the Poetry Foundation. Clifton received many additional honours throughout her career, including the Discovery Award in 1969 for her first collection Good Times, a 1976 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for the television special Free to Be You and Me, a Lannan Literary Award in 1994, and the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 2010. Her honours and awards give testa­ment to the universality of her unique and resonant voice. She was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library in 1996, served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1999 to 2005, and was elected a Fellow in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry – Good Woman and Next – chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She was also the author of eighteen children’s books, and in 1984 received the Coretta Scott King Award from the American Library Association for her book Everett Anderson’s Good-bye.

L uc ille Clifton Blessing the Boats New and Selected Poems

P E NG UI N BO O K S

P E N G UI N C LAS S IC S UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published in the United States by BOA Editions Ltd 2000 First published in Penguin Classics 2023 001 Copyright © Lucille Clifton, 2000 The moral right of the author has been asserted Grateful acknowledgment is made to Copper Canyon Press for permission to reprint poems from the book of light, Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton.

Two lines from House of Light by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1990 by Mary Oliver.

Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

Set in 10.5/13pt Dante MT Std Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. The authorized representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978–0–241–60901–9

www.greenpenguin.co.uk Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

for Russell ​­1963–​­1997 the beautiful boy has entered the beautiful city

contents new poems (2000) the times 3 signs 4 moonchild 5 dialysis 6 donor 8 libation 9 the photograph: a lynching 10 jasper texas 1998 11 alabama 9/15/63 12 what i think when i ride the train 13 praise song 14 august 15 study the masters 16 lazarus (first day) 17 lazarus (second day) 18 lazarus (third day) 19 birthday 1999 20 grief 21 report from the angel of eden 23 from next (1988) album 27 why some people be mad at me sometimes 28 sorrow song 29 female 30

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contents

my dream about being white 31 my dream about the cows 32 my dream about time 33 my dream about falling 34 my dream about the second coming 35 my dream about God 36 my dream about the poet 37 the death of thelma sayles 38 lives 39 the message of thelma sayles 40 the death of fred clifton 41 shapeshifter poems 42 from quilting (1991) quilting 49 white lady 50 the birth of language 52 sleeping beauty 53 poem in praise of menstruation 54 peeping tom 55 wild blessings 56 photograph 57 lot’s wife 1988 58 poem to my uterus 59 to my last period 60 wishes for sons 61 How art thou fallen . . . 62 remembering the birth of lucifer 63 whispered to lucifer 64 eve’s version 65 lucifer understanding at last 66 the garden of delight 67 adam thinking 68 eve thinking 69 the story thus far 70

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contents

lucifer speaks in his own voice 71 blessing the boats 72 from the book of light (1993) imagining bear 75 the women you are accustomed to 76 song at midnight 77 here yet be dragons 78 the yeti poet returns to his village to tell his story 79 crabbing 80 the earth is a living thing 81 if i should 82 further note to clark 83 final note to clark 84 note, passed to superman 85 leda 1 86 leda 2 87 leda 3 88 far memory 89 from The Terrible Stories (1996) telling our stories 99 fox 100 the coming of fox 101 dear fox 102 leaving fox 103 one year later 104 a dream of foxes 105 amazons 106 lumpectomy eve 107 1994 108 hag riding 109 rust 110 slaveships 111 memphis 112

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memory 115 what did she know, when did she know it 116 lorena 117 heaven 118

new poems (2000)