Quilting - Foxes in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton Essay example -- Bio

Quilting - Foxes in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton In 1942 Virginia Woolf read a paper to the Womens Service League about The holy person in the House. For Woolf, this Angel represented the voice in the back of the mind of a womanhood that was saying, Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own (1346). During Woolfs time a woman was not supposed to write critically. Rather, a woman was supposed to be sympathetic be tender flatter give away use all the arts and wiles of her sex. Woolf writes of the need to kill this angel. She says, Had I not killed her, she would have killed me (1346). Thankfully today it is no longer considered improper for a woman to write critically and truthfully, but Lucille Clifton has her own angel to kill in some of her poem. Clifton is a woman artist who uses her past experiences and those of her ancestors to write her poetry. Clifton uses the ideas of light and play a joke ones to air the joy she finds in being a woman poet, as well as the fear that an artist sometimes feels when first struck with an idea for a poem. The poems breaking our stories and the coming of fox reveal the feelings of fear an artist may have when creating a work. In telling our stories Clifton compares a fox to a poet the fox came every evening to my doorasking for nothing. my feartrapped me inside, hoping to dismiss herbut she sat till morning, waiting.at dawn we would, each of us,rise from our haunches, picture through the glassthen walk away.did she gather her village around herand sing of the hairless moon face,the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?child, i tell you now it was notthe animal blood i was hiding from,it was the poet in her, the poet andthe terrib... ...ht some terrible stories. By bringing to light these terrible stories a poet in effect slays the angels that kept her from writing. Every author has his/her own angel to slay. Lucille Clifton sees past the fear she has about what she might write about using her gift of p oetry to slay her angel. Works Cited Clifton, Lucille. Good Woman Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980. Rochester, NY BOA, 1987. ---. Quilting Poems 1987-1990. Rochester, NY BOA, 1991. ---. The Terrible Stories. Brockport, NY BOA, 1996. Rushing, Andrea Benton. Lucille Clifton A Changing Voice for Changing Times. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit, MI Gale Research Inc, 1991. 79-81. Woolf, Virginia. Professions for Women. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Ed. Sandra M. Gilbert and S. Gubar. New York, NY Norton, 1996. 1345-48.