One of Lucille Clifton's most powerful elements in her collection of poetry in Good Woman rests in the power of simple language. At first glance, her poetry does not appear to be overly complicated. Many of the poems and personas are given briefly. However, at a second and third and fourth reading, one pulls more and more sinew out of what appeared to be only a skeleton. For example, in "miss rosie," Clifton creates the life of two personas. The first is Miss Rosie -- who she describes through the persona's voice:
when i watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when i watch you
in your old man's shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week's grocery
i say
when i watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman
who used to be the best looking gal in georgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
i stand up
through your destruction
i stand up
The strong fowl images of what Miss Rosie now looks like to her town and to her anonymous voyeur are easily pulled out on a first read. Phrases like "wrapped up like garbage" and images like "in your old man's shoes/with the little toe cut out" strike the page hard and create a distinct image of Miss Rosie's character. Embedded in the subtext, however, is the darker side of the poem. Not only does the reader get this image of a once beautiful Georgian woman, but the reader also gets the aftermath of her fall and a glimpse into the persona's use and dismissive view of the rags of Miss Rosie. The active use of "when i watch you" suggests the persona is aggressively calculating and observing the demise of Miss Rosie. The final three lines, "i stand up/ through your destruction/ i stand up" also shows the resolve of the persona to come to better circumstances and take the lead where Miss Rosie stopped. The persona is a young woman (probably black) speaking to an older woman, determined to have a better life. Each time I read the poem, like with so much of Clifton's poetry, more and more meat can be pulled from its bones.
Part of the collection of poems in Good Woman... is excerpted from another one of Clifton's books of poetry, "Some Jesus." In this section, a spin is placed on biblical stories with persona poems -- often incredibly short -- that poignantly characterize and humanize the characters of the Bible. Clifton begins with "adam and eve":
the names
of the things
bloom in my mouth
my body opens
into brothers
The simplicity of the poem speaks to creation (both lowercase c and capital C). Without an understanding of the story of Adam and Eve, the reader isn't left with any concrete images. Instead the abstractions of "things/ bloom in my mouth" suggest eating fruit (whatever the debated indulgence was) and something coming from it (knowledge and sin perhaps). The images strongly rely on allusion and knowledge of the story found in Genesis. "my body opens/ into brothers" also suggests birth. The duality of Clifton's craft takes shape in a mere five lines. The persona could be Adam (or a mix of Adam and Eve). We get the image of birth, not the remorse of the Fall as readers. In turn, it could also serve as an ars poetica about the craft or writing, of producing "names/ of the things" from the self. "my body opens" could suggest an outpouring of the soul onto the page. The self in the poem.
"Mary" also appears in "some jesus." "mary" offers the reader a sexualized version of the Virgin Mother:
this kiss
as soft as cotton
over my breasts
all shiny and bright
something is in this night
oh Lord have mercy on me
i feel a garden
in my mouth
between my legs
i see a tree
Again, image and biblical storytelling merge. Genesis and Adam and Eve come into play in the last four lines with a sexualized element. Since Mary is the persona, the virginal depiction melts away to an image of sexualized spirituality in which the natural world (the garden and the tree) connect with body and something hence is born. Another poem that reads on many levels.
One of Lucille Clifton's poems I particularly enjoy, but can't fully wrap my analytic mind around is found in the section "an ordinary woman" under "sisters." Since I still only have a frame of what it means (after reading it about a hundred times) I'll share it in the hope of some feedback and interpretation:
god's mood
these daughters are bone,
they break.
he wanted stone girls
and boys with branches for arms
that he could lift his life with
and be lifted by.
these sons are bone.
he is tired of years that keep turning into age
and flesh that keeps widening.
he is tired of waiting for his teeth to
bite him and walk away.
he is tired of bone,
it breaks.
he is tired of eve's fancy and
adam's whining ways.
The speaker of "god's mood" expresses a dark tone about the fragility of humankind. The final two lines, "he is tired of eve's fancy and/ adam's whining ways" seem to speak to a contemporary audience. We have lost ourselves from the original image. We are at the whim of something beyond us. We demonstrate the failings of morality (and perhaps our own mortality) with "he is tired of years that keep turning into age/ and flesh that keeps widening." Stone and bone become metaphors for the human condition. They are comparison points of what is and what we, to the speaker, could be.
Another puzzling, yet strikingly relatable poem comes under the Kali poems under the section "i agree with the leaves." In Hinduism, Kali represents the Dark Mother. She is an intimate mother figure, fulfilling a role of a mother-figure to her human children. She is an intense image: black with four arms. In one arm she has the head of a demon; in the other a sword. Her two free hands are for her worshippers. Although she is painted in skulls and blood, she is the protecting mother goddess. She has three eyes that enable her to see past, present, and future. She is the mix of birth and death and love.
In "the coming of Kali" Clifton describes not only the goddess Kali, but the state of women as an undertone. Intended or not, it also made me question why women are constantly depicted in myth as dark and evil. The end of the poem recovers to reveal the deeper depths and secrets of the self:
it is the black God, Kali,
a woman God and terrible
with her skulls and breasts.
i am one side of your skin,
she sings, softness is the other,
you know you know me well, she sings,
you know you know me well.
running Kali off is hard.
she is persistent with her
black terrible self. she
knows places in my bones
i never sing about but
she knows i know them well.
she knows.
she knows.
Kali stands for femininity. For the reclamation of the power of women. Her black color is also a reclaiming for what could have been race prejudice at the time Clifton was writing this poem. In many ways "the coming of Kali" is a strong poem. Repetition reinforces that a dark goddess knows about womanhood, about the inner secrets women can't even reveal to themselves: "she is persistent with her/ black terrible self, she/ knows places in my bones/ i never sing about but/ she knows i know them well."
"the coming of Kali" is also stylistically both similar and dissimilar from the shape and form of Clifton's other poems. Lucille Clifton's poetry is characterized by lowercase letters, sometimes scant punctuation. She utilizes the space and the page to let the persona own the truth of whatever it is she is saying. Largely in her poetry, the "i" of the speaker is lowercase. The other characters are also lowercase. At times, Clifton breaks this point of style and draws attention to the character or persona by allowing them to be capitalized. "the coming of Kali" exemplifies this in the title and throughout. Both God and Kali are capitalized, both God and Kali carry extra weight and cause for thought in the poem.
Likewise, the use of lowercase for the many biblical personas found in the collection of poems in "some jesus" also point the reader to look at the persona with a different scrutiny than the Bible allows. For instance, major players -- Jesus, Mary, John, Job, Solomon, Daniel, Cain, Jonah -- all relate lowercase stories and moments. This heightens their value, the punch of the words on the page. A reader expects something didactic. Instead the reader is given a moment, a piece of something relating and real.
As far as my own writing goes, capturing Lucille Clifton's grasp of making something brief speak volumes is worth working towards. And her conscientious use of every piece of syntax, letter, and word to make a statement punch. Her few words on a page all carry weight and meaning. Every time I re-read or re-discover Clifton's poetry, I learn something about myself and the truth of existence as a whole. Her craft is careful, deliberate. And the skeletons on the page also echo more and more and more.
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