Lucille Clifton Poetry Response
Interestingly, the author of this response interprets Lucille Clifton's poetry as being heavily influenced by both her gender and her ethnicity. Many authors are so influenced, particularly in groups where the identification is with a marginalized group, such as the female gender or a minority ethnic group. This author also describes this association as being "sometimes stereotypically" African-American in tone. Although a person might react negatively to such a description, their meaning is understood. Sometimes when a person is writing with the intention of expressing themselves as an avatar for an entire minority community, the attempt to portray a singular African-American identity can come off as stereotypical. Although this point is a valid one, it feels like a thrown away commentary in that it is only provided a single sentence and then moved past without specific evidence in Clifton's work to support the assertion.
In this analysis, the author gives particular attention to Clifton's poem "Jasper Texas 1998." The poem deals with a hate crime perpetrated against a black man by two whites. It is a heinous crime and the poet uses it to exemplify an inner hatred for all white men, according to the views of this analysis's author. From there, the author seems to get more personally involved in the analysis, explaining that as a white male, he does not feel the responsibility or culpability that Clifton seems to be demanding from her words. It becomes rather a scathing indictment of this type of writing, where the oppressed individual in speaking for the rest of their ethnicity takes a stand against the majority population. It is an understandable perspective, but at the same time it perhaps leaves the realm of scholarly discourse and becomes more about personal emotion towards a subject.
The indictments are not given specific examples and I would ask the author of this analysis to clarify exactly where he sees stereotyping and where he sees a call for the white majority to feel guilt. Perhaps explaining these opinions with clear citation of specific source material would help readers understand his perspective and what in Clifton's work he finds offensive.
Lucille Clifton How does her gender in part define her perspective and sensibility? It is interesting to read her poems knowing she is an African-American female, and along with that legacy she has a lot to say to readers. Her emotions (sensibilities) are very up front for the reader; there is no need to dig for deeper meaning in her poems, for the most part. In "Admonitions" she challenges "boys" by flatly saying
Lucille Clifton's poetry and was actually struck by two things: Firstly, I noticed that *'s interpretation of the poems tells me realms about her character and personality which I found interesting. I may be incorrect and these may be my assumptions but it seems to me that my peer is a spiritual person who is inclined towards beauty, is perspicacious, and has insight about the world around her. A writer writes
Clifton Poetry Response This author begins their analysis with a bare-bones description of poet Lucille Clifton's life and authorial perspective. Specifically the author notes the lack of capitalization or punctuation in the poems of Lucille Clifton. However, this aspect is only marginally noted and no analysis is provided as to why Clifton made these choices. It would help this author in their analysis if they put forth a kind of thesis
artist must take a stance in the world. He or she must present himself from a vantage point, a perspective, that identifies him or herself and from which he is able to convey his or her sentiments about whatever topic is at hand. This sense of identity and the vantage point it affords Lucille Clifton and Etheridge Knight are fairly obvious in their poems "adam thinking" and "The Violent
rebellious element in the characters of First Confession by Frank O' Connor, the Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Homage to my Hips by Lucille Clifton. Themes of Literature Frank O'Connor has an artist's touch, primarily because he choose between becoming a writer or an artist. In his writing his talent as an artist is evidenced. This is specially true for his short stories. The First Confession is contained within a
Poetry captures both the personal and the political, and it allows for collective exploration of an internal psychic world. The poet shares an internal psychic world by clocking emotional forms into language. Poetry appeals to our need to understand ourselves and the universe by using an art form of metaphor and semantics in much the same way that a musician uses notes, chords, and harmonies. It is to this service
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