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Through Feminist Eyes
(Humanities)
For over 40 years, the poet Lucille Clifton crafted poems covering a diverse array of subjects from shape shifting, to the supernatural, to the soul affirming, and even the superhuman . Marvel characters such as Superman, The Phantom, and Clifton s own superheroine, wild woman, a play on Zora Neale Hurstons two-headed woman animate her poems with myth, magic, majesty, and power. Perhaps the most recognized and anthologized form of Lucille Clifton s poetry for many readers is her poetry about the female and predominantly black female body. Critical scholarship on Lucille Clifton often explores the ways Clifton unabashedly uses her black female body as a means of negotiating an African American identity Emin 196. Of particular interest in her work is the intersection of the black female body with the American nation. This talk examines Clifton s 2004 collection, Mercy, which I argue provides a unique lens for examining Clifton s larger discussion of the black body and the nation in response to trauma here the trauma of 9 11. While African Americans have been frequent casualties in American history, and their bodies have experienced unspeakable trauma, Clifton s Mercy serves as a primer for the ways, historically, black writers have been able to extend mercy, promote understanding, foster healing, and embrace national concerns when membership in the nation has often been denied.
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