BOA Blog

David Gura from NPR's "All Things Considered" put together a beautiful tribute to Lucille that was broadcasted last weekend. The piece begins: "As a girl growing up in the 1940s on Lake Erie, Lucille Clifton never thought she would become a poet. "The only poets I ever saw were the portraits that hung on the walls in elementary school in Buffalo, N.Y.," she said in 1993. "Old, dead white men, with beards, from New England." Clifton did not look like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or John Greenleaf Whittier or Walt Whitman. She was a woman and an African-American, and later, a...

[caption id="attachment_575" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bill Moyers Journal."][/caption] The tribute to Lucille by Bill Moyers was one of the most beautiful pieces on a poet I have ever seen. Lucille's readings are powerful, playful, deadly serious, and passionate. Moyers eloquently described the impact of her work and the combination of interviews, readings, and information about Lucille's career presented a well-rounded portrait of the poet. In his introduction to the piece, Moyer's said, "The long arc of morality that bends toward justice leads not only through the courthouse and the statehouse but out on the streets and in the pages of poetry...

[caption id="attachment_567" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lucille signing her BOA books. Photo by Robb Cohen."][/caption] This weekend, Lucille Clifton's poetic legacy will be honored nationally on television and radio: Bill Moyers Journal will air a tribute to Lucille tomorrow night. The show airs on PBS and starts at 9PM EST. A complete schedule list is available at the show's website: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html On radio, NPR's "Weekend Edition" will air a 4-5 minute tribute to Lucille including clips of her reading from her BOA books. A complete schedule list is available at the show's website: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=7 Both of these tributes will undoubtedly be moving...

[caption id="attachment_515" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lucille Clifton accepting the 2000 National Book Award (AP Photo)"][/caption] Matt Schudel wrote a moving tribute to Lucille that appeared in The Washington Post. The piece starts with a striking image from Lucille's girlhood: "When she was a girl, Lucille Clifton sat on her mother's lap and listened to her recite poetry. Her mother never made it through elementary school, but she knew the power of language, and her poems stayed in her daughter's head forever. But another memory seared itself in young Lucille's memory, too: when her father said no wife of his would be...

[caption id="attachment_558" align="alignleft" width="199" caption="The Rooster's Wife, poems (and cover art) by Russell Edson"][/caption] In 2005, we were thrilled to publish The Rooster's Wife by prose poet master Russell Edson. Russell was at the forefront of the emergence of prose poetry in America in the early 60s and he continues to produce his trademark hilarious, surreal, and poignant poems. What many people don't know is that Russell's father was a cartoonist and that cartooning had a strong influence on his style. Russell is also a visual artist himself - in fact, his artwork graces the cover of The Rooster's Wife....