Lucille Clifton died on this day back in 2010, the year I graduated from high school, and the year Clifton's Blessing the Boats came into my life. I have the date marked in my planner. So today, having returned inspired and exhausted from AWP in D.C., I'm thinking about Clifton—her poems, her stance on what poems can and should do, how important her work is to me. Doing so, I remember this interview from Sundress' Lyric Essentials blog feature last May. In it, I talk about Clifton's poem "The Times," how it found me, why I carry it with me always, other poems that make me clutch my collarbone for dear life, and answer questions like "Is all poetry inherently political?" There's also a record
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