[New-Poetry] Payday for Clifton

[David Graham]

Lucille Clifton has won the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize, with its modest  
$100K stipend.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/lifestyle/bal- 
to.clifton07may07,0,3656579.story?coll=bal-artslife-today

A most deserving winner, I say.

the photograph: a lynching


is it the cut glass
of their eyes
looking up toward
the new gnarled branch
of the black man
hanging from a tree?

is it the white milk pleated
collar of the woman
smiling toward the camera,
her fingers loose around
a christian cross drooping
against her breast?

is it all of us
captured by history into an
accurate album? will we be
required to view it together
under a gathering sky?

Lucille Clifton.  Blessing The Boats:  New & Selected Poems, 1988-2000.



========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================



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