Lucille Clifton, who died in 2010, held many roles throughout her lifetime: daughter, sister, wife, mother, professor, artist, and widow. Clifton’s award-winning first book of poetry, good times (1969) established her as one of the artists of the legendary Black Arts Movement. Although her poems embrace a wide range of topics, from inner-city life to her family’s genealogy to Native American lore, a significant portion of Clifton’s work reflects on her life as an African American woman. Along with poems that celebrate her womanhood, Clifton’s oeuvre includes several poems lamenting the loss of sex in her life as she aged.
This paper examines three of Clifton’s poems that express her sexual longing: “song at midnight,” “there is a girl inside” and “leaving fox.” These poems boldly countermand society’s dictate that the no longer fecund older woman must put aside any lingering thoughts of sex. Clifton’s openness in writing about her mature sexuality allows older women to be honest about their sexual needs. Clifton writes in a quiet voice. The poems are marked by a calm, almost subdued tenor, which makes the powerful emotions Clifton is expressing all the more compelling. Her words have a delayed impact that catches the reader almost by surprise; they resonate long after the poem has been read. Clifton writes about her sexual yearnings with dignified grace; the poems do not vulgarize or trivialize her female sexual desire. In particular, her deep sadness at being unheld and untouched in “song at midnight” is palpable. Ultimately, Clifton makes us understand that a woman’s sexuality is a natural part of her life’s journey as a female.
About the presenterShirley Theresa Thomas
Shirley Teresa Thomas is pursuing doctoral studies at Morgan State University. Her research interests include Literacy Topics, African American Women Labor Issues, and Feminism. The writer-poet scholars Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton continue to be her heroines.