Lucille Clifton

After reading Broumas, and Sexton it was interesting to see re-visioned myth's that were not from a western tradition. I thought it was interesting that Clifton choose Kali as a figure to revision. I really liked the whole part of the Kali myth that depicts the goddess as not only a symbol of death and destruction, but also as a kind of maternal life giving god. This duality is really shown in Clifton's "the coming of Kali" where she writes

"with her skulls and breasts.
i am one side of your skin,
she sings softness in the other
you know me well you know me well, she sings," (135)

While I enjoyed reading these poems I do think a lot of the time, and judging from the previous myth poems we have read for class, the evocation to a mythical character distances the reader from the poem. I felt this same distance when I read Clifton's Kali poems. The poems seem to have a lot under the surface, and at times it seems like that something is just screaming to get out. In the same poem as above Clifton writes

"she is persistent with her
black terrible self, she
knows places in my bones
i never sing about but" (135)

That is an intriguing idea that the poet as places within her self that she does not explore, yet this deity knows. And in the proceeding poems I think Clifton explores these unsung parts of herself through Kali. However the poems all use Kali as a kind of lens to look at these areas, and like with Broumas, it seems like a mask to shield the poet from writing unabashedly about the regions with in her self which she as never explored before.

When I started to read Clifton's persona poems, however, I started to feel that distance close, and I felt closer to the poet. For instance in the series of poems in some jesus Clifton uses great imagery to render these biblical figures in a new light, like in moses when she writes

"I walk on bones
snakes twisting
in my hand
locusts breaking my mouth
an old man
leaving slavery home burning in me
like a bush
God got his eye on" (93)

Similarly, when I read her poems about tyrone and willie b I felt almost not distance from the poem. It felt like Clifton really was close to these characters, and really captured these characters. These poems felt more natural. As a result I was more connected to the stories of tyrone and willie b.

The distance I have felt with many of these revisionary myth and fairy tale poems could be attributed to the fact that I do not know much about a lot of these myths and fairy tales. I have a basic understanding of the myths and only remember the fair tales from Disney movies. So it is difficult to try and dive into these myths and fairy tales which people much smarter than I have spent life times analyzing and interpreting. It is a lot of baggage for a poem to carry around, and I think it is fair to ask if these poems need that baggage. This is also probably why Clifton's poems with Judea-Christian biblical figures resonates in me much more than her poems dealing with Kali.

Structurally I loved Clifton's poems. I love the short concise construction of her poems, getting the most bang for your buck, as well as her voice which seems very organic. For example in willie b (1) I thought Clifton really captured the voice of this character. In many of her other poems too it felt like she was capturing this same voice. I love how she repeats lines in her poems, and when her voice combines with this it really gives her poems a bluesy feel. If there is something I will defiantly take away from Clifton it is her superb control of language and voice, as well as her short dense verse.