Customer Reviews

Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (American Poets Continuum)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Clifton's poems enter sacred places, not only by their subject matter (human suffering at biblical proportions, or biblical suffering at human proportions), but because of their method of engagement--a direct and immediate engagement with what is "human."

The section of new poems (which begins the book) opens with a devastating poem about recent school shootings, and continues with poems more blisteringly honest and raw (if such can even be conceived by long time readers!) than any Clifton has written before. Some of the previous themes (childhood abuse, cancer, biblical re-tellings) are re-visited at such an excruciating level of intensity, that one thinks Clifton is preparing to leave certain subjects (for a time, perhaps) and launch herself into the next great "Era" of her writing life.

The book is a book of transformations, of all the "boats" in our lives, that carry us from place to place, and we are blessed indeed to be accompanied on our long journeys by Lucille Clifton.

The nineteen new poems are followed by sixteen from "Next," twenty three from "Quilting," fifteen from "the book of ligtht," and eighteen from "the terrible stories." Clifton's book are assembled so artfully as books that it is hard to imagine how she (or her editor) made the choices for the volume. In the end, they prioritized cohesivesness as a volume, choosing whole sequences from the earlier books, rather than the "Greatest Hits" approach. The result is that some readers (including this humble one) may find some favorite poems from the earlier volumes missing, (this is particularly true of the choices from "Next") but the the book, in and of itself has its own true spirit.

I have admired Lucille Clifton's clear, strong poetic voice for many years, and I was really impressed by her book "Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000." Clifton covers a lot of ground in this collection: racial violence, surviving cancer, language, drug addiction, the female body, and more. There are many poems inspired by biblical characters. Some highlights are as follows:

"Sorrow Song": a global vision of human evil and suffering. "female": a poem that declares "there is an amazon in us." "shapeshifter poems": a powerful sequence. "here be dragons": a poem that begins "So many languages have fallen / off the edge of the world / into the dragon's mouth." I also loved the poems that celebrate (and sometimes mourn) the female body: "poem in praise of menstruation," "poem to my uterus," "to my last period," etc.

When she's at her strongest, Clifton attains a truly prophetic quality. I recommend this book both to those who've read and loved her for years as well as to newcomers to this important poetic voice. If you like Clifton, I also recommend the writings of June Jordan and Audre Lorde.

Some books excel beyond the 5-star limit offered here. This is one of them. Lucille Clifton has a magical, inexplicable way bring the most unpoetic subjects to life--including incest, racism, Lucifer, Eve, and the human body. Clifton's poems exude truth and she isn't afraid to write from the somewhat underrepresented perspective of an African American woman. Even the poems that seem to have a narrow audience (Wishes for Sons, To my Last Period) manage to have a universal quality about them. I've been extremely fortunate to hear her read twice--the only thing that improves upon the purchase of this book is hearing the sublime Ms. Clifton in person. Her voice captivates and reasonates from the pages of her books. Anyone who finds these poems offensive should consider the element of truth in each and every one of them.

Lucille Clifton is gone but her legacy of simple, honestly felt, seemingly spontaneously written poems about the live of ordinary people who become icons almost by accident will live on, especially through the collection of her works in this award winning volume BLESSING THE BOATS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1988-2000. Her powers of observation of those aspects of our society that are usually shuttered by embarrassment are here made crystalline. She dares to share her own bruised life but rises above the incidents of horror to make us feel the beauty of living because of her courage. While there are many beautifully written poems in this excellent collection, a National Book Award winner, one particularly lingers in the minds of those who read it. ' jasper texas 1998' is dedicated to James Byrd, Jr. - a black man chained to a pickup by three white men and dragged until he was decapitated - and Clifton's elegy is as follows:

jasper texas 1998

i am a man's head hunched in the road.
i was chosen to speak by the members
of my body. the arm as it pulled away
pointed toward me, the hand opened once
and was gone.

why and why and why
should i call a white man brother?
who is the human in this place,
the thing that is dragged or the dragger?
what does my daughter say?

the sun is a blister overhead.
if i were alive i could not bear it.
the townsfolk sing we shall overcome
while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth
into the dirt that covers us all.
i am done with this dust. i am done.

Poetry of this power changes lives, changes attitudes, changes mankind. Lucille Clifton will be missed in body but her truth seeking spirit will be always with us. Grady Harp, February 10

Review
Paul L. McGehee

Clichés are literary sins, so Lord forgive me when I say Lucile Clifton's Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, is a blessing to own and an inciteful read. Clifton's lines and questions resonate well within the mind of a human being struggling with the issues of living. Like her story of Cancer in the poem "Dialysis", which leaves me with, "...in my dream a house is burning...in my dream I call it light". On another level, as a Black man I can appreciate her questioning the relationships between men women; love, interracial dating, rape, and lynching. Yet it is as a man comes the only critic, well not so much of a critic as it is the perspective coming from another vessel (so to speak). Clifton's poems run deep with imagery and situations articulating the complexities of being a woman, a black woman, in this society. It gives me incite, after all, mothers and sisters have left an impression of black womanhood on my heart, yet me not being a black woman (no shame hear, no offense), I don't get the poems, wholly and truly. That is it; but it is not enough to say this would not be a great addition to anyone's literary alter.

so he brought forth Lucille Clifton. If poetry is the language of life, then Lucille Clifton is the speaker of the language. Her generosity knows no boundaries, her eloquence and spirit embrace every word. Now to the Pulitzer...

clifton weas one of the first poets i ever loved.in my own writing her depective simplicity has influnced me as emily dickinson most likely influnced clifton. also, 'JASPAR, 1995 is probably the best anti-racist poem of the last few year.

Lucille Clifton, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (BOA Editions, 2000)

There's a lot of good stuff in this volume. Especially fine are the mythological poems from Quilting (1991), some of Clifton's best work, delicate yet earthy language full of wonderful images and gentle surprises:

"when she woke up
she was terrible.
under his mouth her mouth
turned red and warm
then almost crimson as the coals
smothered and forgotten
in the grate.
she had been gone so long.
there was much to unlearn.
she opened her eyes.
he was the first thing she saw
and she blamed him.
("Sleeping Beauty")

That's serious poetry right there. It tells you all you need to know, and not a whit more. Granted, not every piece in the volume stands up to these, but then, there aren't that many volumes of poetry every written where everything is of the same quality (and in most of those, every word is utterly, ineffably horrible). When Lucille Clifton is on her game, as you can see above, she's one of the better poets going today; if you're not acquainted with her stuff, you should be. *** ½

Lucille Clifton's Blessing the Boats is a collection of new poems with selected poems previously published in Quilting, The Book of Light, and The Terrible Stories. Her new poems are laced with themes of racism, the human spirit and its struggles, and Christianity.

My personal favorite of the new poems is located on p. 24 entitled "August." This particular poem struck me in such a way that it made me cry. I think all of us have had someone in our life that lost a battle with drugs and/or alcohol. This sweet wish, just to have a brother back, faults and all, is heart-wrenching for those of us with the same wish.

Some of the poetry seems to be reflections and moments caught in the moment, almost as if she wrote them on envelopes or scrap paper here or there. These musings are entertaining and thought provoking, but do not compare to the raw emotions in the majority of the collection. Clifton goes into the ugly places of racism, drugs, cancer, dialysis, and loss with sensitive forthcoming honesty. Her poetry in these areas could probably say what most would be trying to say in the most difficult times. In places and events where there are no words, Clifton gives them to us. "Lumpectomy Eve" and "1994" touches the inner feelings about a woman dealing with breast cancer. Lines 7-15 from "1994":

you know the saddest lies
are the ones we tell ourselves
you know how dangerous it is

to be born with breasts
you know how dangerous it is
to wear dark skin

i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when i woke into the winter
of a cold and mortal body

This book is an excellent compilation of Clifton's work, both past and present. It is a must read for anyone looking to find words through their own tough times.

What a breathtaking poet. This has quickly become one of my fave collections. Clifton is amazingly succinct and deftly descriptive. A beautiful woman, beautiful poems.