"The Human Heart Speaking": Trauma in Selected Poems from Lucille Clifton

Abstract

This article talks about the trauma in selected poems from Lucille Clifton. When asked in a 2007 interview what poetry was to her, Clifton replied, "other than 'the unanswerable question' it's the heart speaking the human heart speaking". In a life full of grief and los--the premature death of two of her six children, her mothers death at age 44, her husbands death at age 49, her multiple struggles with cancer and kidney failure--one of the topics upon which Clifton's heart spoke often was the sexual abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of her father.