Before starting this unit, I was unfamiliar with the work of Lucille Clifton, having maybe heard the name once or twice but never in association with a particular poem. But this exploration has been extremely enlightening for me, both to her and her work, but also the deep topics that her concise poems address.
The poem that completely captured my attention and made me pause, was "wishes for sons". Based on the title alone I expected to find her doting a mother's hopes and dreams on to her children, imagining all the wonderful things they would accomplish in the world. But instead what I was confronted with was a curse, wishing them to experience the pain and problems of womanhood, the cramps, clots, hot flashes and white skirts. It was so unlike what I was expecting to experience, that the venom in her voice penetrated deep into my thoughts, creating a home for itself among my other notions.
But perhaps I was simply foolish in my expectations. Her poems often encompass these struggles of women, mothers, and african americans in society, but this one hit a very different chord. While poems like "won't you celebrate with me" and "the lost baby poem" hold a righes anger towards society and life itself, the cruelty created by existence, "wishes for sons" is different. Written so directly, and wishing pain and suffering onto another, it holds a much deeper aggravation.
Perhaps it was just the fact that this poem is directed at me as a man in society that caused it to stick out so strongly, calling out our "arrogance in the universe," but I still think that it holds a stronger power than many of her other works. By addressing a shared experience among half the worlds population, it becomes directly personal for women, but her wishing the experience upon men makes it all encompassing, a common shared struggle for everyone.
The poem that completely captured my attention and made me pause, was "wishes for sons". Based on the title alone I expected to find her doting a mother's hopes and dreams on to her children, imagining all the wonderful things they would accomplish in the world. But instead what I was confronted with was a curse, wishing them to experience the pain and problems of womanhood, the cramps, clots, hot flashes and white skirts. It was so unlike what I was expecting to experience, that the venom in her voice penetrated deep into my thoughts, creating a home for itself among my other notions.
But perhaps I was simply foolish in my expectations. Her poems often encompass these struggles of women, mothers, and african americans in society, but this one hit a very different chord. While poems like "won't you celebrate with me" and "the lost baby poem" hold a righes anger towards society and life itself, the cruelty created by existence, "wishes for sons" is different. Written so directly, and wishing pain and suffering onto another, it holds a much deeper aggravation.
Perhaps it was just the fact that this poem is directed at me as a man in society that caused it to stick out so strongly, calling out our "arrogance in the universe," but I still think that it holds a stronger power than many of her other works. By addressing a shared experience among half the worlds population, it becomes directly personal for women, but her wishing the experience upon men makes it all encompassing, a common shared struggle for everyone.
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