An Ordinary Woman

by Lucille Clifton

Genres: Poetry

94 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1975

About the author

Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from New York. Common topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African American heritage, and feminist themes, with particular emphasis on the female body.

She was the first person in her family to finish high school and attend college. She started Howard University on scholarship as a drama major but lost the scholarship two years later.

Thus began her writing career.

Good Times, her first book of poems, was published in 1969. She has since been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and has been honored as Maryland's Poet Laureate.

Ms. Clifton's foray into writing for children began with Some of the Days of Everett Anderson, published in 1970.

In 1976, Generations: A Memoir was published. In 2000, she won the National Book Award for Poetry, for her work "Poems Seven".

From 1985 to 1989, Clifton was a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland. From 1995 to 1999, she was a visiting professor at Columbia University. In 2006, she was a fellow at Dartmouth College.

Clifton received the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement posthumously, from the Poetry Society of America.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful to be reading Lucille Clifton's collected works. I'd read some of her poems before, but reading them all in light of one another has been incredible - I'd never considered myself a fan of hers, and now I can't get enough. I especially liked "A Storm Poem" here (possibly because of my deep love for "Storm Warnings."

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clifton's third collection of poems is consistent with her first two books in every way; in tone, style, structure, vocabulary, etc. This can be both a strength and a weakness. When reading Clifton's work in order, there is little sense that her work was growing or evolving at all by this third collection. I actually liked the poems here the best of her first three books, but found the first book more charming as an introduction to her thought and writing style. Her style is interesting enough and the poems brief enough to keep the reader motivated, and her themes are certainly captivating, which I suspect was the allure for her publishers. The poems are at once both emotionally complex and linguistically simple, both accessible and vague. In this collection, my favorite poem was the last one, "The thirty-eighth year." Other strong poems were "Some dreams hang in the air," "Breaklight," "My poem," and "Last note to my girls."

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outwardly and textually similar to her two previous collections of poems, the third volume stands out for the presence of so many individually perfect poems and an astonishing number of perfect lines. Having finished the book earlier today, I’ve already been drawn back to reread a good dozen poems.

Just a stunning collection overall, and a masterclass in poetic minimalism. The poems are never plain; they’re stripped down to the essentials and polished to a blinding shine.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Last night/the fears of my mother came/knocking and when i/opened the door/they tried to explain themselves/and i understood/everything they said."

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Ordinary Woman is divided into two parts: "sisters" and "i agree with the leaves". Both of which demonstrate the esteemed poet's starkness and profundity.

from "sisters"...

The wind is eating
the world again.
Continents spin
on its vigorous tongue
and you Adrienne
broken like a bone
should not sink
casual as dinner.
Adrienne.
I pronounce your name.
I push your person
into the throat
of this glutton.
For you
let the windmouth burn at last.
For you
let the windteeth break.
- A Storm Poem, for Adrienne, pg. 13

*

call it our craziness even,
call it anything.
it is the life thing in us
that will not let us die.
even in death's hand
we fold the fingers up
and call them greens and
grow on them,
we hum them and make music.
call it our wildness then,
we are lost from the field
of flowers, we becomes
a field of flowers.
call it our craziness
our wildness
call it our roots,
it is the light in us
it is the light of us
it is the light, call it
whatever you have to,
call it anything.
- Roots, pg. 21

*

you are the one
i am lit for.
come with your rod
that twists
and is a serpent.
i am the bush.
i am burning.
i am not consumed.
- To a Dark Moses, pg. 35

from "i agree with the leaves"...

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
- The Lesson of the Falling Leaves, pg. 43

*

sometimes
the whole world of women
seems a landscape of
red blood and things
that need healing,
the fears all
fears of the flesh;
will it open
or close
will it scar or
keep bleeding
will it live
will it live
will it live and
will he murder it or
marry it.
- She Is Dreaming, pg. 53

*

i beg my bones to be good but
they keep clicking music and
i spin in the center of myself
a foolish frightful woman
moving my skin against the wind and
tap dancing for my life.
- The Poet, pg. 61

*

ran against walls
without breaking.
in night games
was not foul
but, brave as a hit
over whitestone fences,
entered the conquering dark.
- Jackie Robinson, pg. 77

*

light keeps on breaking.
i keep knowing
the language of other nations.
i keep hearing
tree talk
water words
and i keep knowing what they mean.
and light just keeps on breaking.
last night
the fears of my mother came
knocking and when i
opened the door
they tried to explain themselves
and i understood
everything they said.
- Breaklight, pg. 85

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"call it our wildness then,
we are lost from the field
of flowers, we become
a field of flowers.
call it our craziness
our wildness
call it our roots,
it is the light in us" (from "roots")

The earliest collection from Clifton to get my full attention, achieved with the first poem "in salem (to jeanette)," a poem that subverts a dialogue about witches and gendered surveillance in the Salem context to be less about white men and women and rather white and Black women. Clifton is a sparse writer, reminding me of Sonia Sanchez in some ways, but she is also a very... I would say mystical but spiritual may be the more appropriate word. So, she is a very spiritual writer who is also very much in touch with ideas of historical memory and human's tangible relationship with nature. This appeal to nature and history can be recognized in, for instance, "a visit to gettysburg." A spiritually-textured eroticism can be read in the 8-line "to a dark moses" where the final lines read, "i am the bush. / i am burning. / i am not consumed." Immediately after, Clifton presents her first of multiple poems to Kali, the Hindu goddess:

woman of warfare,
of the chase, bitch
of blood sacrifice and death.
dread mother. the mystery
ever present in us and
outside us.

Clifton's unadorned style greatly grew on me, the lack of capitalization, minimal punctuation, and lack of titles for some poems. Seemingly a poet of the everyday, there is a potential mysticism and certainly a spiritual element undergirding all of her observations, granting expansive capacity to her many short poems. I really wanted to read Clifton after having both Roger Reeves and Ada Limón recommend her. This collection feels like a great place to start, but it is still early in her career so I am excited to read what comes next.

other favorites: "cutting greens" / "i went to the valley" / "breaklight" / "some dreams hang in the air"

[Cody]

some of these pieces are so tender and sweet that they made my heart hurt a little, “sisters” and “i am not done yet” especially. it was very lovely and special to read this right after generations, and to know a little bit more about the people to whom clifton dedicated poems in this volume

[Vanessa (V.C.) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit that I'm not a poetry reader but this collection was lovely. Most of it didn't read much like poetry tbh. They were more like very lovely affirmations of Black womanhood and that's what made it so great and precious.

[andré crombie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.”

[Liv · Rating 4 out of 5]

“if in the middle of my life
i am turning the final turn
into the shining dark
let me come to it whole
and holy
not afraid
not lonely
out of my mother’s life
into my own
into my own”