The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition by Lucille Clifton

The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition

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The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition by Lucille Clifton
  • The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition by Lucille Clifton
The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition

Copper Canyon Press

The Book of Light: Anniversary Edition

by Lucille Clifton

$22.00
$22.00

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With a powerful introduction by Ross Gay and a moving afterword by Sidney Clifton, this special anniversary edition of The Book of Light offers new meditations and insights on one of the most beloved voices of the 20th century.

Though The Book of Light opens with thirty-nine names for light, we soon learn the most meaningful name is Lucille--daughter, mother, proud Black woman. Known for her ability to convey multitudes in few words, Clifton writes into the shadows--her father's violations, a Black neighborhood bombed, death, loss--all while illuminating the full spectrum of human emotion: grief and celebration, anger and joy, empowerment and so much grace.

A meeting place of myth and the Divine, The Book of Light exists "between starshine and clay" as Clifton's personas allow us to bear the world's weight with Atlas and witness conversations between Lucifer and God. While names and dates mark this text as a social commentary responding to her time, it is haunting how easily this collection serves as a political palimpsest of today. We leave these poems inspired--Clifton shows us Superman is not our hero. Our hero is the Black female narrator who decides to live. And what a life she creates! "Won't you celebrate with me?"
Book Details
Publisher:
Copper Canyon Press
ISBN:
9781556596780
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
96
Authors:
Lucille Clifton
Published Date:
2023-08-29
Language:
English
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About Lucille Clifton

A National Book Award winner and the first Black woman to receive the Poetry Foundation's Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) was born in Depew, New York, and studied at Howard University. Her debut, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was a New York Times best book of the year. Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (BOA Editions, 2000) won the National Book Award for Poetry. In 1988 she became the first writer to have two collections, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems (both BOA Editions, 1987), named Pulitzer Prize finalists in the same year. The Poetry Society of America awarded her the Robert Frost Medal in 2010.

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