Quotes from Lucille Clifton

I do not feel inhibited or bound by what I am. That does not mean that I have never had bad scenes relating to being Black and/or a woman, it means that other people's craziness has not managed to make me crazy.

I come to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

blessing the boats (at saint mary's) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that

You are the one I am lit for. Come with your rod that twists and is a serpent. I am the bush. I am burning I am not consumed.

oh antic God return to me my mother in her thirties leaned across the front porch the huge pillow of her breasts pressing against the rail summoning me in for bed. I am almost the dead woman's age times two. I can barely recall her song the scent of her hands though her wild hair scratches my dreams at night. return to me, oh Lord of then and now, my mother's calling, her young voice humming my name.

they will empty your eyes of everything you love

so many languages have fallen off the edge of the world

I am a black woman poet and I sound like one.

If someone gives you permission, they can take it away. I give myself permission.

The literature of America should reflect the children of America.

who among us can imagine ourselves unimagined? who among us can speak with so fragile tongue and remain proud?

her dangling braids the color of rain.

dreaming your x-ray vision could see the beauty in me.

a tongue blistered with smiling

Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language.

was my first landscape, red brown as the clay of her georgia.

i am rejuvenated bones rising from the dear floor where they found you

they are shrouding words so that families cannot find them.

The moon is queen of everything. She rules the oceans, rivers, rain. When I am asked whose tears these are; I always blame the moon.

and at night my dreams are full of the cursing of me fucking god fucking me.

these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don't fit into little petty places.

come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

walked erect out of my sleep

America made us heroines not wives. We hid our ladyness to save our lives