Two-Headed Woman

by Lucille Clifton

Autobiographical poems depict the poet's feelings about her family, her life, her poetry, and her identity

Genres: Poetry, African American Literature, Feminism

72 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1980

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

[Áine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just fell in love with Lucille Clifton.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not crazy about the section about Mary and Joseph, but the rest is so damn good.

[Patch · Rating 5 out of 5]

took 15 minutes to read but i will never recover

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two-Headed Woman is divided into three parts: "homage to mine", "two-headed woman", and "the light that came to lucille clifton". All of which demonstrate the esteemed poet's starkness and profundity.

from "homage to mine"...

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
pretty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

- homage to my hips, pg. 6

*

listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

- what the mirror said, pg. 7

*

i went into my mother as
some souls go into a church,
for the rest only. bu there,
even there, from the belly of a
poor woman who could not save herself
i was pushed without my permission
into a tangle of birthdays.
listen, eavesdroppers, there is no such thing
as a bed without affliction;
the bodies all may open wide but
you enter at your own risk.

- to the unborn and waiting children, pg. 17

from "two-headed woman"...

the reason why i do it
though i fail and fail
in the giving of true names
is i am adam and his mother
and these failures are my job.

- the making of poems, pg. 24

*

like a pot turned on the straw
nuzzled by cows and an old man
dressed like a father. like a loaf
a poor baker sets in the haystack to cool.
like a shepherd who hears in his herding
his mother whisper my son my son.

- how he is coming then, pg. 37

from"the light that came to lucille clifton"...

in the beginning
was the Word.

the year of Our Lord,
amen. i
lucille clifton
hereby
testify
that in that room
there was a light
and in that light
there was a voice
and in that voice
there was a sigh
and in that sigh
there was a world
a world a sigh a voice a light and
i
alone
in a room.

- testament, pg. 51

[Timothy Juhl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slim volume of Clifton's work, published in 1980. Clifton's poetry always lingered in the periphery of work I was somewhat familiar, and I do remember watching a poetry documentary back in the 1990s which featured her reading some of her work. There was a warmth in her words and her physical self that I was drawn to.

Clifton relies on the language of her upbringing and growing up in the black community of New York (upstate). When she employs that language and syntax, her poems seem more earthy and to come from a deeper part of her.

Clifton explores a lot of her thoughts on religion in this collection and those poems are a stumble for me, not because of the content, but because of my own atheism. I simply don't get the fascination with trying to explain prophecy and biblical mythology.

Clifton keeps her poetry short, often poems of no more that 10 lines or less and in those lines are some incredible pairings of words and metaphors. She's also very candid in writing about her own womanhood, both in sexual and cultural terms and what it was like to be a large, black woman of a certain age in 1980. Those poems are among her best and include her famous poem, "homage to my hips."

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a certain raw energy and emotion to Clifton's work, in this collection like the others that came before. I'm reading Clifton's books in order of release, and this raw urgency really impressed itself upon me in her first book. I think, to be honest, over time this starts to fell less raw and less urgent as the work progresses, because Clifton's poetry simply did not evolve at all across the first four books. The style, the structure, the themes, the use of language; it's all essentially the same in all four collections, so that the work really begins to run together. Although Clifton used language in her own unique way, and one can certainly spot a Lucille Clifton poem when they encounter it, I'm hoping for some variety and maturity as I continue to read.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. review coming

[Taffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

[Sammy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite anything that may stand in her way, Clifton makes no apologies for who she is and will like hell for a life worth living.

[Meg Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the delights -- none of the guilt!

Women are genius!

[Laura Whitcombe · Rating 4 out of 5]

one face turned outward
one face
swiveling slowly in

[Mills College Library]

811.54 C639h 1980

[andré crombie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“or perhaps
in the palace of time
our lives are a circular stair
and i am turning”

[EyeWrite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucille is all Light, Mary, mothers and sons, fire, and wings.