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.

and ''study the masters'' (''like my aunt timmie''). 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. 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. Enjoy.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. That last section, by the way is about 18 pages out of 128, and it's still worthwhile, just not as memorable as the earlier portions of the book. If you're not deadset on reading the whole thing straight through, I'd recommend reading the last section, the poems from The Terrible Stories, first, and then beginning at the beginning to read the rest and the best of the work. I will say that I found the ending section to be the weakest-it was enjoyable, but didn't live up to the earlier work in the collection.

If you enjoy poetry, I strongly recommend this collection. The poems are beautiful, unique, thoughtful, and what's more, they're accessable. Marys), bringing attention not only to the relationship between classical music and. Here though, there's little left to be desired. (2017) features Lucille Cliftons poem blessing the boats (at St. Those who really capture you with both-particularly on a regular basis within their works, I find rarely. There are some authors you go to for their language, and some for their ideas. This collection, though, is one I'll keep and return to, and there are quite a few poems I'll be copying down into a journal I keep of favorite poems. I had read Clifton before, but only poems that were dropped into larger anthologies, and while I'd enjoyed them, I was never blown away. I read quite a bit of poetry, though I rarely end up sitting down and reading a collection by a single author at once without jumping between collections, journals, etc.

Blessing the boats by lucille clifton