Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton

Ali (Indian Winter), a literature professor at the University of California–San Diego, offers a perceptive analysis of the major themes and literary techniques found in the oeuvre of National Book Award–winning poet Lucille Clifton (1936–2010). Studying how Clifton probes the intersection of past and present, Ali discusses how her use of the first person in “atlantic is a sea of bones,” a poem about the Atlantic slave trade, highlights the ways in which the repercussions of American slavery continued to unfold in her own time. Ali argues that the poem “if i stand in my window”—in which Clifton imagines that a Black woman pressing her breasts against a window incites spiritual revelation in a passerby—refutes the tendency to sexualize and dehumanize Black bodies by portraying a Black woman in a “position of privilege and power.” Elsewhere, Ali discusses Clifton’s theology; her genre-defying 1976 memoir-cum-prose-poem, Generations; and the pessimistic turn taken by her later works in the 2000s. Ali’s keen close readings reveal the subtle complexities of Clifton’s poetry (he points out that “moses” emphasizes the contrast between the eponymous prophet and the forces arrayed against him by using iambic meter when describing the former and trochaic meter for the latter), making a strong case that her work has been unjustly overlooked. This winning study should help revive interest in the poet. Agent: Leslie Shipman, Shipman Agency. (Sept.)