Her imagery, drawn largely from the ordinary details of ghetto life, conveys a haunting, enduring quality. Throughout the three volumes, Clifton consistently celebrates those particular black men and women who gain beauty and stature through combating a hostile environment and through probing their own private identities.
Many of Clifton's views of individuals and of society are directly related to her family history, a background dramatized in her magnificent prose autobiography Generations: A Memoir (1976). The daughter of Samuel and Thelma Moore Sayle, Thelma Lucille Sayle Clifton was born in Depew, New York; she attended Howard University and graduated from Fredonia State Teachers College. She married Fred J. Clifton in 1958, and they have four daughters and two sons. She has served as visiting writer for Columbia University School of the Arts, and since 1971 she has been poet-in-residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland. Among the honors she has received are the YW-YMHA Poetry Center Discovery Award for 1961 and National Endowment for the Arts Grants for 1969 and 1973.
This is a free page. This page contains 170 words. This
biography contains 2,721 words (approx. 9 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our (Thelma) Lucille Clifton Access Pass.
