Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (American Poets Continuum Book 59)

The long-awaited collection by one of the most distinguished poets working today. Publishers Weekly Culling from her last four books and including 19 new poems, Clifton's latest offers few surprises, but all of the joys and straight-talk readers have come to expect over 40 or so years of work. Proceeding chronologically, poems from next retell "my dream about the cows," "my dream about being white" and "the message of thelma sayles," among other poems and modes. Quilting juxtaposes updatings of Eden with poems on menstruation, and with, among others, the title poem: "may the tide/ that is entering even now/ the lip of our understanding/ carry you out." the book of light features three Leda poems ("sometimes another star chooses./ the ones coming in from the east/ are dagger-fingered men") and the seven-part serial stock-taking "far memory," while The Terrible Stories tell of "the coming of the fox" (in several poems) and wait for "something human." New poems chart the aftermath of cancer and kidney failure, speak in the voice of the murdered James Byrd Jr. and "study the masters" ("like my aunt timmie"). While the use of lowercase throughout seems less-than-always apt, Clifton's idiom is unmistakable, well beyond her quip some years ago--"I am a Black woman poet, and I sound like one." A companion to Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, this collection distills a distinctive American voice, one that pulls no punches in taking on the best and worst of life. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.| Overview: Winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Poetry, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 is the culminating achievement of Lucille's Clifton longstanding poetry career. This long-awaited collection by one of the most distinguished poets writing today includes poems written during the past four years as well as generous selections from Lucille Clifton's award-winning collections Next: New Poems, Quilting and The Terrible Stories. Clifton employs brilliantly honed language, stunning images and sharp rhythms to address the whole of human experience. Hers is a poetry that is passionate and wise, not afraid to confront our most salient issues Lucille Clifton, one of America's most important and distinguished poets, employs brilliantly honed language, stunning images, and sharp rhythms to address the whole of human experience. Hers is a poetry that is passionate and wise, not afraid to confront our most salient issues. "Although her work is often spare and simple, it is always beautifully and painstakingly crafted into poems that tell the truth, poems that insist on residing within the reader, poems by a poet who seeks and achieves the ability to be a vehicle for those who may not otherwise speak." Web Del Sol Review of Books New poems (2000) from Next (1988) from Quilting (1991) from The book of light (1993) from The terrible stories (1996).