Latest / Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess / Lucille Clifton—A Celebration | Episode #392

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Lucille Clifton—A Celebration | Episode #392 · Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess

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Hello, and welcome to today's show, Legacy Living, Make Your Life Count.
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I'm your host, Doctor Gloria. Gloria Burgess, passionate inspirational speaker,
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author, poet, and entrepreneur. Welcome to Legacy Living, Make your Life
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Count. I'm delighted that you joined me. I want to give a great
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big thank you to those of you listening in today. I also want to
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give a great big shout out to all of you listening all around the world.
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I'm delighted and so grateful that you tuned in. I sure hope you're
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enjoying a fabulous day to day and that you're having a fantastic week, because
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you know what, in the grand song of the universe, life is very
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very short. It's short and sweet and oh so precious. So I hope
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you're making a difference in your own life, because when you do, you
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also make a difference in someone else's life. Now, a lot of us,
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a lot of folks really want to make their life count for something,
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but they don't know quite how to do it, and it seems so big
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to them that they don't even know where to begin. So they ask me,
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doctor Gloria, how do you do that? How do you make your
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life count? Well, it's really very simple, very very simple. You
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make your life count day by day, step by step, moment by moment,
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every single day three sixty five twenty four seven. You make your life
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count by being there for somebody who needs the sweet fragrance of your presence,
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By the simple loving things that you do for someone or say to someone.
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By being an encourager, by being an uplifter. Maybe it's by making dinner,
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or maybe buying flowers or running a warm bath for your wife or husband,
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just because, by being grateful for who you are, being grateful for
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family and friends, and counting your blessings. Now that's just nine or ten
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different ways to make your life count. It doesn't have to be written in
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headlines across the sky, does it. You can make your life count just
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by doing the simple things, the small things, the things that will move
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someone else's heart. That's what legacy living Make your Life Count is all about.
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You can learn more about legacy living Make your life count by visiting the
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Gloria Burgess website. That's Gloria Burgess g l O R I A B as
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in boy you are g E S S dot com. Just take a look
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around the website, and you know, notice a few of the things that
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are on there, and you'll get a better sense of who I am and
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what legacy living is all about. Now, that's the Gloria Burgess website.
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G L O R I A B as in boy you are g E S
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S dot com or by visiting Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash d
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R for doctor d R Gloria Burgess p h D forward slash all Right,
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today's show is an honor of a wonderful a wonderful poet and author, Lucille
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Clifton. She's an incredible writer and an amazing human being. Now, as
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many of you know, during the month of February in the United States,
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we celebrate Black History Months or Black Heritage Months as we sometimes call it.
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Well, you know me, I like to celebrate the lives of African Americans,
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the soulful music of black lives, every single day, not just the
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twenty eight days in February, every single day, three sixty five, twenty
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four to seven. So who is who is Lucille Clifton? Well, as
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I mentioned just a few moments ago, she's an incredible poet and she's also
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an amazing human being. I had the privilege and the honor of meeting Miss
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Clifton, not once, but several times. I first met her at the
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Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, which is held every other year on the
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East Coast. I also met her at the Scadget River Poetry Festival, which
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is also held every other year. Now these are sister poetry festivals, the
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Dodge Festival and the s. Gadget Festival, and these two celebrations are actually
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held on alternate years. Now. When I first met Miss Lucille, I
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was struck. I was struck by how ordinary she was. Now I don't
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mean ordinary in a negative kind of way, not at all. I actually
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mean it as a very high compliment. Lucille was ordinary in the way she
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looked, the way she walked, the way she spoke, the tilt of
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her head, even the language she used. The words she used to introduce
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her poems, and the words she used in her poems spoke to me.
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They spoke to my core, just as clearly as an elder in my personal
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village would speak words of wisdom to me. The just right sized pearls that
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I could tuck into my pocket and take with me wherever I happened to go.
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From Lucille's words, I could actually imagine the streets she lived on,
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the house she lived in, the people she lived with, even the food
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she might have cooked for those people. Her people, her people were also
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my people. I could relate to Lucille as if she were one of my
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own, one of my own neighbors, one of my own aunties, one
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of my own sisters. Even right why because she was she was one of
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my own. Lucille was the kind of person I loved to meet, and
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I love to write at the kind of person who who dares, who dares
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to be fully and completely who they are inside and out. So in her
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honor, today's focus is dare to be you, dare to be you.
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Now, before I die into today's show, I want to pause for just
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a moment to welcome you. To welcome you, my listeners. If you're
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just joining us, I'm your host, doctor Gloria. Gloria Burgess. This
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is legacy living, make your life count, and I'd like to extend a
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very special welcome to those of you who are joining my show, or if
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you're joining Talk Network Radio for the very first time. Let me tell you
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you are in for a real treat. I'm excited to have you listening in
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today, and I'm deeply honored that you've allowed me to be part of your
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so you can be inspired by the ideas and resources to make your life count.
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Now once again, today's topic is there to be you, and my
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focus today is to pay tribute, to pay homage to miss Lucille Clifton as
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we lift up this prolific poet and writer. Now, the best way to
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introduce Lucille Clifton is not through the lens of the many awards and prizes and
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an honorary degree she earned, or where she taught, or even how many
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books she wrote, books of poetry and books for children. Oh No,
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the best way to introduce Lucille Clifton is through her own words, through her
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own poems. I remember that whenever I heard her read, she seemed to
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really enjoy reading one of her best known poems. Some of you may know
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it. It's called Homage to My Hips. Homage to my Hips. These
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hips are big hips. They need space to move around in. They don't
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fit into little petty places. These hips are free hips. They don't like
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to be held back. These hips have never been enslaved. They go where
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they want to go. They do what they want to do. These hips
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are mighty hips. These hips are magic hips. I have known them to
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put a spell on a man and spin him like a top. I just
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love this poem for so many reasons. I'm gonna read it again homage to
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my hips. These hips are big hips. They need space to move around
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in. They don't fit into little petty places. These hips are free hips.
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They don't like to be held back. These hips have never been enslaved.
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They go where they want to go. They do what they want to
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do. These hips, these hips are mighty hips. These hips are magic
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hips. I have known them to put a spell on a man and spend
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him like a top. I just love Lucille and how she takes just a
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handful of words and makes incredible music and magic out of those words. I
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love this particular poem. It explores the body, a woman's body, in
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ways that we're not supposed to talk about all the time, right and certainly
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not in public, at least not when this poem was written. On another
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layer, this poem also addresses the body, the black body, not as
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a thing not as an object, not as something that was owned by another
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human being. Here Clifton lists up the body as asd and luscious, not
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as an object, mind you, but as an embodied aspect of womanhood and
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as someone who had stepped away from an identity of being owned, of being
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enslaved. Another one of my favorite poems by Miss Lucille is called Slaveships slave
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Ships. In this poem, she calls the name of several slave ships that
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were used during the Middle Passage. Now, often the ships were named using
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Christian images and words from scripture. And for those of you who may not
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know what the Middle Passage is, it's actually a term that we use that
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refers to a specific part of what is sometimes called the triangular route of the
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slave ship. So imagine in a triangle. Okay, imagine a triangle,
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and the points of the triangle point to the geography of the slave trade.
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So at the top, you know that very first point of the triangle,
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at the top, we would refer to what is now known as the UK,
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the United Kingdom, Okay. And then the second point of the triangle
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points down to the west coast of Africa, all right, And then this
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point of the triangle crosses over Okay to the third point, and that geography
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is known as the America's North America, Central America, and South America.
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These were the destination points for the African people who were enslaved. So the
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Middle Passage is the name that we give to the middle part of the triangle,
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the part where the slave ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean from from Africa to
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the Americas. So Lucille says this about her poem Slaveships. She says,
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this is a poem about ships that went from the African continent and took free
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people and brought them to this continent where they were enslaved. Now, she
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goes on to say, I did not say that this was about ships that
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went to Africa and got's slaves and brought them here. And there is a
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difference, if you can feel it. Now. I noticed these names of
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slave ships, and I wanted to write about it. One of the ships
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was called Jesus, one was called Angel, and another was called Grace of
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God. So here's her poem, slave ships loaded like spoons into the belly
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of Jesus, where we lay for weeks for months in the sweat and stink
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of our own breathing Jesus, Why do you not protect us? Chained to
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the heart of the Angel, where the prayers we never tell, and hot
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and red as our bloody ankles, Jesus Angel, Can these be men who
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vomit us out from ships called Jesus Angel, grace of God onto a heathen
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country? Jesus Angel? Ever again, can this tongue speak? Can these
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bones walk? Grace of God? Can this sin live? Mercy? What
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do you say after a poem like that? Again, It's a mazing what
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Lucille can do with just a just a handful of words, a handful of
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ordinary words that she transforms into the extraordinary. It is beautiful poem. Asphodel
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William Carlos Williams says this, it is difficult to get the news from poems.
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It is difficult to get the news from poems, though men die miserably
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every day for lack of what is found there. This little gem about the
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news you can find inside poems is if tucked deep inside of that poem.
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Asphodel, Lucille's poems remind me that inside of every poem is a bit of
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news, news that shines the light on what it means to be, to
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be human. Before her death in February twenty ten, Clifton was a Distinguished
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Professor of Humanities at Saint Mary's College of Maryland. She also taught at Columbia
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University. Born in Depew, New York, in nineteen thirty six to working
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class parents, Lucille attended Howard University before she turned seventeen years old. She
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was actually sixteen when she enrolled. Although she was given the name Selma when
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she was born, as a young woman, she changed her name to Lucille.
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Her given name of Selma was also her mother's name. Like Lucille,
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her mother was also a writer, a poet in her own right, whose
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gifts were unfortunately thwarted. In her poem called Fury Fury, Clifton captures the
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essence of her mother's experience. For Mamma Fury, remember this. She is
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standing by the furnace. The coals glisten like rubies. Her hand, her
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hand is crying. Her hand is clutching a sheaf of papers, poems.
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She gives them up. They burn jewels into jewels. Her eyes are animals.
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Each hank of hair is a serpent's obedient wife. She will never recover.
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Remember, there is nothing you will not bear for this woman's sake.
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Lucille Clifton's father and her mother had an elementary school education, and her mother
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was also a poet, a poet with a burning desire to write. In
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Lucille's own words, she says, once, my mother got a letter from
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somebody who wanted to put her poems in a book, and my father wouldn't
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let her do it. Now, now you frowned, because what you know.
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Now she's talking here to Bill Moyers, who's interviewing her. Okay,
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she continues, but let me tell you something. In the forties and fifties,
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husbands thought they could do that. Sometimes guys still try that now,
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Okay, it's not gonna work for you, you know. And so what
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my mother did was take her poems and she burned them. She put them
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in a cold stove. And I was standing on the steps down into the
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cellar when she did that. And this poem fury, This is a poem,
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and I understand. I remembered that. I understand what fury and anger
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were. Now again, this is Lucille talking to Bill Moyers. He was
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interviewing her for his wonderful gem of a book called The Language of Life.
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This book is all about poets, poetry, and the craft of using language
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to reflect life, to give us a window into life, into humanity.
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Lucille's poem is very, very powerful. It is a poem that pays homage
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to her mom. It's also a poem that uses a few Welsh words,
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like all of Clifton's poems do. And in those few words, those few
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lines of poetry, is this magnificent story told in miniature. This poet is
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so so at the top of her craft, she can convict us all in
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just a few short lines. And at the core of this last poem,
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at the core this poem paints a vivid picture of her mom throwing her poems
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into that batch of coals, into the fiery furnace. But at the core
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of this poem are words and images. It's a story about loyalty. Now,
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for Thelma Sayers, it's about her poems, her creativity, and it's
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also about her lord loyalty, about her loyalty, her stepfastness to being a
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woman who accepted her husband's wishes. Now for us, maybe it's about loyalty
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to work or loyalty to the past, or to a place, or to
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a friendship, or to a lifestyle. Perhaps maybe it's our loyalty to our
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friends or a relationship that no longer nourish us. Maybe it's work that no
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longer feeds us. Or maybe it's loyalty to a way of living, a
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way of being, a way of moving through the world that no longer serves
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us. Now, what we don't often recognize is that on the other side
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of loyalty is disloyalty. Okay, let me repeat that. What we don't
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often recognize is that on the other side of loyalty is disloyalty. And what
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do I mean by that? Well, often, in order to be loyal
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to something or someone or how we move through the world, we have to
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give up something. We have to surrender something, don't we We have to
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be disloyal to someone or something else in order to be loyal. Now,
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many of us are disloyal to our own creativity. I just spoke with a
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woman this morning who called me. She said, Gloria, I need some
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mentoring time. I need some mentoring time. And what the conversation was all
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about, what disloyalty? Being disloyal to our own creativity, and when we
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are, the consequence is that we're disloyal to our own creative juices, our
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own creative life. When we're loyal to someone or something else, we often
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become disloyal to what has heart and meaning for us. Here's the thing.
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We form habits, well intentioned habits that make us obedient to one thing,
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a way of life, a way of thinking, a way of being a
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spouse or a partner, our children sometimes right, and in so doing we
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don't even realize the big price tag that goes along with that choice. So
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what is the price we pay? The price we pay is being stuck,
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being stuck in old ways of thinking, in unhealthy relationships and work that we
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have all grown. We stay stuck in old, worn out habits and routines
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that no longer fit us, that no longer provide oxygen for us, habits
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and routines that no longer serve us. Well, that's a different show,
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I know. Right now. Back to Lucille. One of the many things
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I just love about Lucille, that I just adore about her is her uncanny
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ability to recognize the extraordinary in what others would see as ordinary. She actually
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sees in a particular way, and she goes the extra mile through her curiosity
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and then through her writing. That's what artists do, that's what poets do,
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that's what musicians do, that's what sculptors do. They go the extra
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mile. They see in a very particular way, and then they go the
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extra mile through their curiosity and whatever art form they're working in. So by
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seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, Lucie feel makes a difference every single day
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in her poems and in her children's books. This next poem is one that
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came out of Lucille's experience of visiting a plantation, visiting a plantation in South
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Carolina. Now, for me, her experience and what she pours into the
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poem is all about It's all about seeing, all about seeing. And I
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just love how she reflects on an ordinary experience that most of us would just
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take as a given. We just kind of take it for granted, going
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on in all plantation tour, right, But not Lucille. She senses into
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her experience and this curious and as furious as a terrier with the bone,
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she on Earth's and treasures, Unearth's and treasures, what is quite extraordinary This
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next poem is called at the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina,
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nineteen eighty nine. At the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina,
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nineteen eighty nine. Among the rocks at Walnut Grove, your silence drumming in
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my bones, Tell me your names. Nobody mentioned slaves, and yet the
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curious tools shine with your finger prints. Nobody mentioned slaves. But somebody did
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this work, who had no guide, no stone, who molders under rock.
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Tell me your names, Tell me your bashful names, and I will
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testify. The inventory lists ten slaves, but only men were recognized among the
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rocks at Walnut Grove. Some of these honored dead were dark. Some of
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these dark were slaves. Some of these slaves were women. Some of them
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did this honored work. Tell me your names, fore, mothers, brothers,
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tell me your dishonored names. Here lies here, lies here, lies
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here, lies here. A prolific and widely respected poet and writer, Lucille
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Clifton's work emphasizes endurance and strength and resilience through adversity because she focuses on African
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American experience and life, and because she is so particular in that focus,
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her work is universal in its appeal and its impact. That's what good poetry
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does, so particular in its focus, that it becomes universal, universal in
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its appeal and its impact. In fact, as they awarded the prestigious Ruth
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Lily Poetry Prize to Clifton about ten years ago, the judges said, one
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always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton's poems. It is a moral quality
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that some poets have and some don't. As I mentioned earlier, Lucille left
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this earth about seven years ago. On February thirteenth, twenty ten, Lucille
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Clifton died. I, for one, could not believe it. I didn't
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want to believe it. My fellow poet and writer, my sister friend,
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who when asked about the craft of poetry, would craftily tell you stories instead.
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My sister friend passed on after a long struggle with cancer. She crossed
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over to the other side. About two weeks later. Bill Moyers wrote a
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fitting tribute to her life and her work. Here's what Moyers wrote. He
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says, the long arc of morality, the long arc of morality that bends
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towards justice, leads not only through the courthouse and the state House, but
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out on the streets and in the pages of poetry and prose. Luckily,
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for the rest of us, there are writers who, in words both beautiful
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and bold, can expl for us rage at injustice. But they don't stop
35:08
there. They help us experience sorrow and joy through an intimate knowledge of tempestuous
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human nature. We lost one of those gifted people the other day, one
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of our most popular poets, my friend Lucille Clifton. Lucille Clifton's poetry,
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legendary for its sparseness of word and punctuation, spoke unflinchingly of personal hardship,
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the history of oppression, and the human condition. She was a standout in
35:45
several programs we meaning PBS, in several programs we produced over the years on
35:52
the Wonders of poetry. Lucille Clifton learned to love language as a child to
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poems written by her mother, a woman who never finished grade school. Inheriting
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that love of language and the spirit of her mom, Lucille Clifton wrote poetry
36:12
of her own twenty years before she was actually published, but with her first
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collections of poems, she quickly gained recognition that just kept growing over time.
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Over a long and prolific career, Clifton published more than thirty books that probed
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the indignations of slavery, celebrated the day to day events of life and community,
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and chronicled with frank and poiant sensuality, the fragilties, the frailties and
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pleasures of the human body. Lucille Clifton was a two time finalist for the
36:57
Pulitzer Prise in the same something that had never happened before. In two thousand,
37:07
she received the National Book Award for her book of poems called Blessing the
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Boats, New and Selected Poems, and then in two thousand and seven,
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she became the first African American woman to receive the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize,
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one of America's most prestigious poetry honors. Lucille Clifton was seventy three. Thank
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you, Bill Moyers for that amazing, amazing tribute. I'll share one final
37:45
poem with you today by Lucille Clifton, one of my favorites, as we
37:47
lift her up today in honor of Black History Months, a very special month
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when we celebrate the accomplishments the achievements, the mighty road that blacks had.
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And you know I like to celebrate Black history not only during the month of
38:05
February, but every single day three sixty five twenty four to seven. This
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poem is fittingly called Won't you celebrate with me? Won't you celebrate with me?
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Won't you celebrate with me? What I have shaped into a kind of
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life. I had no model, born in Babylon, both non white and
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woman. What did I see to be except myself? I made it up
38:51
here on this bridge between Starshine and Clay, my one hand holding tight other
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hand. Come celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me
39:14
and has failed. Oh, miss Lucille, Miss Lucille, we lift you
39:30
up and celebrate you. We celebrate you each and every single day. Thank
39:37
you for teaching us how to dare, to dare to be you. Now,
39:53
if you missed any part of today's broadcast, you can listen to the
40:00
recording at your own convenience. You can listen to it on the goal.
40:04
How about that. Check us out at www. Dot talknetwork Radio dot com.
40:10
Forward slash Legacy Living. That's www. Dot talknetwork Radio dot com.
40:17
Forward slash Legacy living L E G A, C Y L I, D
40:24
I N G, all smushed together in one word. Before I close today,
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I want to thank each of you for tuning in to today's show,
40:37
for allowing me to share a bit of my journey with what legacy living is
40:42
all about, not just living and learning, but living and learning and serving
40:46
so that you make a difference in your own life and in the lives of
40:52
others. It's all about being on purpose every single day. Three sixty five
40:59
twenty. Legacy living is one of the many ways to make your life count.
41:07
I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess, and this has been Legacy
41:12
Living. Make your life count. Please join me again next week right here
41:17
on Talk Network Radio for another show of legacy living. Make your life count.
41:24
Don't just count the days in your life, Make the days in your
41:30
life count. That's what legacy living is all about. Have a fantastic day,
41:36
and remember, make the days of your life count. Godless, that's
41:52
our show today. I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess. I hope
42:00
you'll join me again next week. Until then, don't just count the days
42:05
in your life, make the days in your life account. That's what legacy
42:09
living is all about. Here's to you have a fantastic day. Be sure
42:16
to make it a yes kind of day, and remember celebrate, celebrate the
42:22
music of your life. Make the day in your life a count