The Terrible Stories
National Book Award for Poetry Finalist Lucille Clifton is one of the most distinguished American poets writing today. In The Terrible Stories, her tenth collection of verse, Clifton covers new terrain--cancer and mastectomy, the life of King David, encounters with a vixen fox who is both shaman and muse. Brilliantly honed language, stunning images and sharp rhythms address the whole of human experience: birth, death, children, family, sexuality and spirituality, and community in antebellum and contemporary American culture. Hers is a poetry passionate and wise, ranging from the personal to the biblical to the mythical, not afraid to rage or whisper.
bathsheba
how it was it was
as if all of the blood in my body
gorged
into my loin
so that even my fingers grew stiff
but cold and the heat of my rod
was my only burning
desire
desire my only fire
and whether i loved her
i could not say but
i wanted her whatever she was
whether a curse
of the wife of uriah
© BOA Editions, Ltd 1996
Available editions:
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Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-37-3
Price: $12.50
Publishing Date: January 1996
$12.50
