In Voices, National Book Award-winner Lucille Clifton continues her celebrated aesthetic of writing compact poems that reveal powerful, sometimes disturbing truths. These include poems written for and about her mother and father, aunts, uncles and nephews, and extended family. Spare muscular language combine with copious silences to create the trademark Clifton poem – one is which the speaker always understands that the joy, grief and loss others have experienced stands in direct relationship with her own.
One of Clifton's aesthetic strengths is her ability to write inventive dramatic monologues. Voices includes several dramatic monologues spoken by animals. Additionally, the food products Aunt Jemima syrup and Cream of Wheat get their say. Here is Cream of Wheat's take on who he truly might be, as he imagines himself, Jemima and Uncle Ben (from Uncle Ben's Rice) sharing a late night stroll through the supermarket aisles:
cream of wheat
sometimes at night
we stroll the market aisles
ben and jemima and me they
walk in front humming this and that
i lag behind
trying to remove my chef's cap
wondering what ever pictured me
then left me personless
rastus
i read in an old paper that i was called rastus
but no mother ever
gave that to her son
toward dawn we head back
to our shelves
our boxes ben and jemima and me
we pose and smile i simmer
to myself what is my name
"National Book Award-winner Clifton has long enjoyed national acclaim for her careful, colloquial, compact renditions of African-American voices...and these poems look even further back, to the origin of writing. Clifton retains an undeniable sincerity, an openness to her own emotions, and a rare warmth."--Publishers Weekly
"Lucille's unique ability to not only see but to capture emotional dichotomies of issues surrounding issues and braid them like challah is what makes her one of the most frequently taught and famous poets living in the world today."--Rattle
"An eloquence that is akin to justice, that arises out of voicelessness, that tests but respects the limits of language, and yields to acknowledge the final dominion of silence, is the hallmark of Clifton’s work, now honed to its essential truth-speaking power: 'Sometimes we hear them in our dreams/ rattling their skulls, clicking/ their bony fingers/ they have heard me beseeching/…but who can distinguish one human voice/ amid such choruses/ of desire?'"–The Buffalo News
BOA is honored to present this new collection by one of America's most distinguished and beloved poets, Lucille Clifton.
BOA Editions author page for Lucille Clifton
Available editions:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cloth
ISBN: 978-1-934414-11-8
Price: $22.95
Publishing Date: September 2008
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-934414-12-5
Price: $16.00
Publishing Date: September 2008
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOA Editions, Ltd. would like to thank the following generous Publishing Partners for their support of Voices:
Anonymous (2)
Kazim Ali
Michael Blumenthal
Susan Burke & Bill Leonardi
Alan & Nancy Cameros
Gwen and Gary Conners
Dale Davis & Michael Starenko
Susan DeWitt Davie
Peter & Sue Durant
Pete & Bev French
Marla Friedrich
Robert L. Giron
Judy & Dane Gordon
Kip & Debby Hale
Sandi Henchel
Peter & Robin Hursh
Willy & Bob Hursh
X.J. & Dorthy Kennedy
Archie & Pat Kutz
Jason D. Labbe
Jack & Gail Langerak
Dorianne Laux & Joseph Miller
Katy Lederer
Rosemary & Lewis Lloyd
Dan Meyers
Boo Poulin
John Roche, in memory of Shirley S. Roche
Steven O. Russell & Phillis Rifkin Russell
Chris & Sarah Schoettle
Jane Moress Schuster
Vicki & Richard Schwartz
Bob Shea, in memory of Liam Rector
George & Bonnie Wallace
The Wallack Family
Thomas R. Ward
Patricia D. Ward-Baker
Michael Waters
Pat & Mike Wilder
Glenn & Helen William
Steve & Erica Yunghans
Geraldine Zetel, in honor of Kinereth Gensler
|
