Wednesday This past Sunday I shared a number of poems from Lucille Clifton’s Book of Days to reflect on how Christian nationalists, many of them wielding weapons of war, work against Jesus’s goal to bring the kingdom of God to Earth. One poem from the collection particularly stands out in the wake of the mass […]
Tag Archives: Lucille Clifton
Gun Violence and Armageddon
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Easter 1916", "armageddon", Buffalo mass shooting, gun violence, Uvalde mass shooting, violence, W. B. Yeats Comments closed
Thy Will Be Done on Earth
Lucille Clifton’s final book of poems call out some of the blindnesses of Christian fundamentalists.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Black Boy, Book of Days, Christian nationalists, Fundamentalism, Richard Wright Comments closed
Dancing in the Face of Darkness
In “Evening Sun,” poet Kenyon remembers a life-affirming moment as a child that would bolster her as an adult.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "man who killed the bear", "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day", "Evening Sun", Jane Kenyon, sorrow Comments closed
Join in the Joyful Symphony
Two Palm Sunday poems, by Lucille Clifton and Henry Vaughan, emphasize the vegetation imagery.
Lucille Clifton on Turning Red
Pixar’s “Turning Red” brings to mind a series of Lucille Clifton poems where she too looks at the red dimensions of womanhood–and how to handle them.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "poem in praise of menstruation", "to my last period", "the way it was", adolescence, Turning Red Comments closed
A Love Poem Flavored with Salt
Clifton’s “salt” works as a Valentine’s Day poem, but not a normal one.
Lit as a Life Survival Kit
When I teach literature, I emphasize application first, interpretation second.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Diving into the Wreck", "Knight" Donald Trump, "Knight", "what the mirror said", Adrienne Rich, Mary Oliver Comments closed
Are the Liberal Arts Automatically Liberal?
Literature, in the current climate, cannot help but be seen as political. That’s because it urges us to consider other views.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "note to self", "grandma we are poets", Critical Race Theory, Liberal arts education, Othello, rightwing radicalism, William Shakespeare Comments closed
