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Reading Group Guide
The Terrible Stories Poems by Lucille Clifton
Employing
brilliantly honed language, these poems cover topics as diverse
as cancer and mastectomy, the life of King David, encounters with
a vixen fox which is both shamen and muse. Lucille Clifton's poetry
addresses the whole of human experience: birth, death, children,
family, sexuality and spirituality.
Visit
the web page for The Terrible Stories [here]
Discussion Topics
- In "memory," why does the speaker claim her mother
tells the story "better than i do," when their
memories of the event are completely different?
- In the poem, "a dream of foxes," there
are no foxes mentioned. Where do you think the poem's title
come from?
- Throughout the second
section, From the Cadaver, the interplay between the speaker's
breast cancer and feelings
of hunger and
desire is developed. How does this relate to "the need/to
feed?" What has breast cancer done to the speaker's
hunger for life?
- In section three, A Term in Memphis, how
do the images of birth, death, and flowing water function in
the poems about
the
speaker's journey south?
- How does the last poem work to end
this collection? Does it bring the book to a conclusion
or does it move beyond the
rest of the poems?
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