How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton

by Lucille Clifton, Aracelis Girmay (Editor)

Edited with a Foreword by Aracelis Girmay, How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton celebrates famous poems and shines light on lesser-known poems by poet―and national treasure―Lucille Clifton (1936–2010).

Lucille Clifton’s poetry defined strength through adversity focusing particularly on African-American experience and family life. Clifton’s poems were widely celebrated during her lifetime, and she received wide acclaim for her work including the National Book Award, the Robert Frost Medal, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her poems continue to inspire a new generation of readers and writers in the 21st century.

In How to Carry Water, formidable younger poet Aracelis Girmay (winner of the Whiting Award, GLCA Award, and the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award) introduces a selection of Clifton’s work that is simultaneously timeless and fitting for today’s tumultuous social and political moment.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Adult, Classics

278 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 2020

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

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about this poet when I read Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, and now that I've read this collection I feel like I really missed out! I'm happy to be introduced to her now.

The poems in this collection span her career and include some previously uncollected works as well. Themes range from the female body and how her own experiences included interference by male relatives, miscarriage, birth, motherhood, cancer, and more. There are some poems that comment on loss of loved ones or people who were killed in a more public way, as well as some events of political significance such as the Philadelphia bombing of the MOVE compound.

Some of my favorites from this collection:

the lost baby poem (CW for miscarriage and child loss)

there is a girl inside
(she is randy as a wolf)

sorrow song (read online)
"... their eyes,
staring at us, amazed to see
the extraordinary evil in
ordinary men."

blood
"...this ordinary girl..."

In the middle of the Eye (included within this blog post)

[Hallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems about the strength and tenacity women have; the ability to navigate life through grace and have a quiet strength. It reminded me of my mother:

“my mama moved among the days like a dreamwalker in a field; seemed like what she touched was hers and seemed like what touched her couldn’t hold, she got us almost through the high grass then seemed like she turned around and ran right back in, right back on in.”

The importance of women taking ownership of their bodies and claiming space in a world that will try to objectify you:

“If i stand in my window naked in my own house and press my breasts against my windowpane like black birds pushing against glass because I am somebody
in a New Thing. . .let him watch my black body push against my own glass let him discover self.”

The reflection on a past self, the difficulty of letting go and the anticipation of a fresh start:

“i am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that i catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what i said to myself about myself when i was sixteen. . .but i am running into a new year.”

[Kenyatta Hinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection edited by Aracelis Girmay is absolutely breathtaking! I am a huge Clifton fan and to see her poems woven in this way and to read so many poems concerning water, blood, the moon, and being twelve fingered made me think so closely about the orisha Yemonja and so many concepts. I inhaled this collection and could not put it down. I am so looking forward to repeating reads. I was so thrilled about the previously uncollected poems too. This book was so well done. I really loved the forward and how the literal moon phase that Lucille was born under was considered. The afterword was beautiful too in which Girmay shared correspondence from her former students and so many scholars of her work and you could get such a beautiful grasp of what being a poet was about for her. This book was so much medicine for me and I am so grateful that it exists!

[Elizabeth☮ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucille Clifton is a genius of a poet. She has poems that range from simple observations to heavy declarations on life in America.

My personal favorite is about dealing with breast cancer:

in the mirror

an only breast
leans against her chest wall
mourning she is suspended
in a sob between t and e and a and r
and the gash ghost of her sister

t and e and a and r

it is pronounced like crying
it is pronounced like
being torn away
it is pronounced like trying to re
member the shape of an unsafe life

[Hayden Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh, good fuck. y'all. I've been crying for, like, an hour.

[Kate Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is maybe the most powerful compilation of poetry I have ever read.

Lucille Clifton's first book of poems was published in 1965 when her children were ages 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Her final poems mourn the dead of Hurricane Katrina. Throughout that span her words are sharp, loving, clear. These are words for the struggle against racism and war and ecocide, and also all the tender and brutal moments of being a specific body. Unforgiving and full of grace and oh good lord Lucille.

Get this book. Read this book.

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous. This collection of poems share the visceral experiences of womanhood, living as a Black woman in America, cancer, and loss in a deeply impactful and profound way.

"i am left with plain hands and nothing to give you but poems."

What a powerful legacy to leave.

[Basia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aracelis Girmay did a commendable job of gleaning these gifts from the bounty that is Lucille Clifton’s work. I especially admired the Acknowledgments, in which we hear directly from other poets on what Clifton’s work means to them. What a delight and blessing it has been to spend time with these poems. I found myself undressing the book of its dust jacket and tracing Clifton’s signature, inscribed on the cover, when I was done. That the script of that hand birthed these poems, I am overcome with appreciation.

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning.

[Liv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Retrospectives that are anything less than the full collecteds are going to leave some poems out that should have been put in. If anything got short-changed in this selection, it was Clifton's biblical poems. I wish it had included the "tree of life" sequence from Quilting, the David poems from The Terrible Stories, and a couple of the more spiritual ones from the unfinished manuscript at the end of The Collected Poems. I was happy to see that "brothers" made it in from The Book of Light, even as I felt a little indignant that, by excluding the "tree of life" sequence, first-time readers wouldn't experience the full impact of Lucille's Lucifer poems. But overall, this is a fantastic introduction to Clifton's work. Thanks to Aracelis Girmay's gorgeous introduction & reverent selections, I'm thrilled to finally have an answer to the question "where should I start?" (Because, you know, up until now I've just said "with all of them," and it's really hard to convince people to commit to reading a 720-page collected works.)

Do yourself a favor & buy this book. Then track down a copy of her collecteds, because I know you'll want to read them.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the land of "selecteds" this one is amazing. With her selection, for which she gives her rationale in the intro, Aracelis Girmay created a beautiful arc, a stand-alone collection in itself. The omission in the text's body of standard dividers, such as titles the selections are taken from, underscores this sense. Clifton's work shifts into new angles of light. As an aside, it's fascinating to re-/read Girmay's The Black Maria alongside How to Carry Water.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute treasure. I have read all of Clifton’s work and even got to meet her when she was still alive. This collection is so beautifully put together: it’s like reading her again for the first time.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a new collection of selected poems of Lucille Clifton. Clifton fans who’ve already read her “Collected Poems” or her individual collections should be aware that there are ten poems included that have not previously been published. Aracelis Girmay is the editor of the volume and did the selection and arrangement of the poems, and I think she did a fine job with the task.

The poems are largely free verse, and heavily feature confessional and social justice poetry. That said, it is a diverse selection across the poetess’s career, and offers poems that will resonate with anyone. There are poems that examine the world from the perspective of group identity (i.e. as an African American, a woman, or both of the above.) There are also poems that pivot on Clifton’s life experience as an individual – e.g. a cancer survivor who had a mastectomy. Her poetry is bold in its candidness in dealing with issues ranging from civil rights to women’s health.

I found this collection to be powerful and evocative, and would highly recommend it for readers of poetry.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Lucille Clifton's poetry. So raw and powerful as well as insanely creative

[지훈 · Rating 5 out of 5]

undeniably beautiful

[Ryan Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection. I generally have read more collections assembled by the author but this anthology was so enjoyable to work through.

It’s the longest collection of poems I read and was obviously a slow burn. That said, I felt like I got to enjoy so many different aspects, motifs, and themes in Clifton’s poetry because of the length.

Would recommend this collection to someone wanting to get into poetry or someone that’s interested in studying a black, female poet writing through the civil rights movement. Clifton’s poetry masterfully explores family, loss, diasporic culture, health, and faith. I will be reading more of her work!

[Monica Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much word gift here but ‘water sign woman’ is my new favorite life poem.

the woman who feels everything
sits in her new house
waiting for someone to come who knows how to carry water without spilling, who knows
why the desert is sprinkled
with salt, why tomorrow
is such a long and ominous word.

they say to the feel things woman
that little she dreams is possible,
that there is only so much
joy to go around, only so much
water. there are no questions
for this, no arguments. she has

to forget to remember the edge
of the sea, they say, to forget
how to swim to the edge, she has
to forget how to feel. the woman
who feels everything sits in her
new house retaining the secret
the desert knew when it walked
up from the ocean, the desert,

so beautiful in her eyes;
water will come again
if you can wait for it.
she feels what the desert feels.
she waits.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

she could see the peril of an
unexamined life.
she closed her eyes, afraid to look for her
authenticity
but the light insists on itself in the world;

A collection spanning the poet's life, which feel like is a well I need to revisit as I get older, and whose depths I have just barely begun to skim right now.

[Jazmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crediting this book with properly getting me back into poetry. Will be rereading for the rest of my life.

[Sadifura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, as I'm not good at reviews, I'm just going to give my Assorted Thoughts:

-The poetry collection already started itself out strong, but once it hits the poetry collected from "Uncollected Poems (1973-1974)", Clifton's poetry got REALLY interesting, beautiful, and well-written from then on.

-Some of these poems, as expected from someone with a life full of trauma and death as Lucille Clifton, were intense and traumatic. I often had to take breaks in the middle of reading her poetry simply to think and breathe, or often had to stop reading the book altogether at some portions. Yet other poems of hers, even with the dark content she writes about, were so intriguing I had to read all the series of her poetry to their finishes; "the astrologer predicts at mary's birth" all the way to "mary mary astonished by God" were absolutely beautiful poems, as short as they were, because I could feel the intense emotions within them, and they compelled me to read more.

-There are too many poems about this subject to name starting from the poems collected from "an ordinary woman", but I heavily related to how Clifton discussed her family's "generational madness", which she believed was linked to her female familial line's propensity for twelve fingers on each hand. I am likely schizo obsessive, which is a disorder that (in my case) was caused by pediatric OCD onset and the onset of schizophrenia-like symptoms around late-elementary to early middle school, and I developed what is likely catamenial frontal lobe epilepsy at around 14; I'm not diagnosing Lucille, I don't intend to, but those poems about generational madness and psychosis and occasionally Clifton's preoccupation with morality (as evidenced by the poem where she believes she was inherently evil for killing the roaches in her apartment) gave me the same relatability as my own schizo obsessive disorder and, when describing her mother and daughter's "fits", my own epilepsy.

-Another favorite poem series of mine was "leda 1" "leda 2" and "leda 3", which is one of the most beautifully written retellings of the Leda and the Swan myth, just with a lot more brevity and arguably more feminist than a lot of "Greek myth feminist retellings" in the modern era; Lucille describes quite eloquently Leda's low station in life, and how she was repeatedly raped by the Greek God Zeus under the guise of a swan.

-"shapeshifter poems" is one of the most well written poems about rape, child sexual abuse, and childhood trauma I've ever written. Although admittedly some poetry or fiction about rape or child sexual abuse do benefit from being graphic, in that it shows the cruelty and pain that rape and CSA perpetuates on a child and it can be a really good processing method for many survivors of such, whether it simply be incestuous groping/molestation or outright rape, Clifton's approach, couching her poem about her rape by her father into something "universal" as she says, is equally as effective and those who are "in the know" about what Lucille Clifton went through can easily figure out what is actually happening in the poem, let alone if you've gone through something similar yourself, whether it be the brutal rape Clifton suffered or simply being groped and molested "as a joke" with nobody doing anything to stop it until you reach adulthood.

[Maha]

Here are the back reviews I like:

Eisa Davis, “(...) I think she had to find a way to keep herself safe, in her mind. so in
her poems I feel her drawing a circle around us while smelling a wolf.
there’s safety to be made, and a leakage of that safety. since the
poems are lyrical, especially in the ohs she uses, it’s a new gospel I
hear …she’s laughing. a lot. she tells the children to say she’s a poet,
she don’t have no sense—and this means to me that she must have
plenty. sense above sense, outside of sense. she writes poems in one
movement, about one piece of sense. she survived her father and re-
turned to us as the moon."

Here is Kamiliah Aisha Moon on what Clifton’s work makes possible:
“Permission to be and keep it real. To be shameless, unabashed. To
be vulnerable as a show of strength. To wonder and to be amazed. To decipher dreams. To rage eloquently and elegantly. To claim and
proclaim.”

Here is Rachel Eliza Griffiths: “Clifton’s work has pushed me away
from believing that what is ‘simple’ is also ‘easy,’ which is to say, that
Clifton has guided me into a tense space of belief, love, and labor.
Clifton’s faith is chiseled into what is both spoken and unsayable.
Her work also asks me to leap and to remember, as Morrison wrote,
the natural and earned elements that might be defined as ‘freedom.’
Clifton’s work is the opening in the water and the water, the flight and
the brutal symphonic wind the wings make as they lift the body to
which they belong. And, too, Clifton’s work is a space where the word
‘belonging’ opens and opens for me. She belongs to herself, to her
family, to poetry, to us, and whatever is beyond that. Her work then is
also about the autonomy of language, about whom and which words
are spared. It is also about whom language, memory, justice do not
spare.”

Here is Mendi Lewis Obadike on what she learned from Ms. Lucille
who was her teacher: “That being a writer has to do with being a part
of a community, learning to touch another.

“And poetry is a way of wondering that involves other people.”

[Marguerite Hargreaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucille Clifton's poetry intones and wails and rages by turns. Its unapologetic point of view never wavers, either. I flagged more than a dozen poems and many more passages I found arresting and thought-provoking. Like most of Clifton's poetry, it demands to be read aloud. The lack of punctuation and capitals gives it urgency :

"my mama moved among the days
like a dreamwalker in a field;
seemed like what she touched was hers
seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,
she got us almost through the high grass
then seemed like she turned around and ran
right back in right back on in"

"we will wear new bones again.
we will leave these rainy days,
break out through another mouth
into sun and honey time.
worlds buzz over us like bees,
we be splendid in new bones.
other people think they know
how long life is
how strong life is.
we know."

"I stand on my father's ground
not breaking.
it holds me up
like a hand my father pushes.
virginia.
i am in virginia."

"in the thirty eighth
year of my life,
surrounded by life,
a perfect picture of
blackness blessed,
i had not expected this
loneliness ...

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 ...

i had expected more than this.
i had not expected to be
an ordinary woman."

"twenty-one years of my life you have been
the lost color in my eye, my secret blindness,
all my seeings turned gray with your going.
mother, I have worn your name like a shield.
it has torn but protected me all these years,
now even your absence comes of age.
i put on a dress called woman for this day
but i am not grown away from you
whatever i say."

"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."

"when i wake to the heat of the morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride"

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

"but she opens herself/ to the risk of flame and walks toward an ocean/ of days"

"what we will become/ waits in us like an ache."

Clifton's poems have her characteristic look on the page: lower case, little to no punctuation, usually short lines. And they contain nuggets of refreshingly new language at every turn. The collection traces the arc of a life - through childhood to parenthood to old age, with its losses and illnesses. In reading these selections we see the poems in dialogue with each other, including traumas and losses that resurface with new perspectives over time, commentaries and challenges to sexism and racism grounded in current events and familial lineage. This collection is an opportunity to get to know a poet one feels one already knows better, to see the stepping stones of less familiar poems tracing their way to the more commonly known ones. Through it all, an insistence on the transformative power of art: "when you lie awake in the evenings/ counting your birthdays/ turn the blood that clots your tongue/ into poems. poems."

[Jillian Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved quite a few of these poems, but I don't think I loved the format. Since this was a collection of poems from different publications, there were times I felt rather lost. It was hard to understand the connections from one poem to another. I think I'd prefer a single volume. Here's one of my favorites...

the mississippi river empties into the gulf

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
none of them emptying anything,
all of them carrying yesterday
forever on their white tipped backs,
all of them dragging forward tomorrow.
it is the great circulation
of the earth's body, like the blood
of the gods, this river in which the past
is always flowing. every water
is the same water coming round.
everyday someone is standing on the edge
of this river, staring into time,
whispering mistakenly:
only here, only now.

[Camille Dungy]

Read this book. Then read it again. Lucille Clifton spoke through the voice of the universe, casting as loving an eye on a roach as a fox as the waves from the Chesapeake Bay. Her connection to the many vibrant, unique lives on this planet is unparallel in contemporary American poetry. Her trademark compression and attention and care are as necessary today as they were when she first penned the poems in this thoughtfully selected collection.

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2022/03/17-...

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A life chronicled through poetry, touching on everything from her childhood to her cancer diagnosis. Hard to pin a favorite. (There are so many!)

"i had expected more than this.
i had not expected to be
an ordinary woman." (from The Thirty Eighth Year)

Love "why some people be mad at me sometimes"

"you know that the saddest lies
are the ones we tell ourselves
you know how dangerous it is" (from 1994)

"what we will become
waits in us like an ache." (from birth-day)

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this collection—my first deep dive into Lucille Clifton! Her poems are deeply emotional, political, historical, feminist, domestic. Highly recommend reading them out loud to really hear their rhythms.

“i don’t know how to do
what i do in the way
that i do it. it happens
despite me and i pretend

to deserve it.”

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems I liked:
new bones
the lesson of falling leaves
the thirty eight year
mary mary astonished by god
poem in praise of menstruation
water sign woman
blessing the boats
brothers
evening and my dead once husband
blood
Poem To My Yellow Coat
quartz lake, Alaska

“what we will become / waits in us like an ache.”
From birth-day

[Sarah Simms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of Clifton’s poetry, including poems about nature, society, her health and family. I loved ‘it was a dream’ and ‘I am running into a new year’ and have a book full of markers now!

[Darcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poet everyone in America should read. Her poems are accessible, profound and relevant to today's world. Her focus is on women, mothers, Black history, society and culture. Can't remember reading too many poetry books where nearly every poem knocked me out with its beauty, ideas, rhythm....