In the 1980s I taught composition and intro to literature at LSU-Shreveport (Louisiana), and of course, teaching meant the occasional academic conference, often an offshoot of Modern Language Association. The one in question here might have been at Texas Christian University, but the true location is mired deep in my faulty memory.

      What stands out is the poet who was a special guest, Lucille Clifton. Ignoramus that I was, I went to her reading because it was at least poetry after a full craw of collegiate oatmeal. The thing is, and I’m now appropriately embarrassed, I had never heard of Clifton. To my credit, I still remember her reading “homage to my hips.” Well now, here was a woman with no apology about her body. One could learn something about feminism from her, and I was then devouring books by Gloria Steinam, Germaine Greer, and Adrienne Rich. And that one poem did more to awaken me than I can say.

     A call to reality in a world of cosmetics and body shapers is still one of the benefits of poetry, and I’m still cooking it up and swallowing it whole. So thank you, Lucille Clifton, for that pinprick in my angst about body image.

     You know, though, there’s a bit of grit on my tongue here: after the reading Clifton was seated in the front row of the meeting room and in passing I told her that I had liked her poems. (Liked? A watery compliment for a reading that has stayed with me for decades.) And then, I asked if she had a book out. The only excuse I can think of for my ignorance is that the introducer made hash of her remarks and why the hell were there no books in view? There, I blame my faux pas on the host institution, wherever it was.

     Just so you know, Clifton has in her resume the National Book Award, Juniper Prize and a couple of nominations for the Pulitzer. Her first book, Good Times, was one of the ten best books of 1969 according to the New York Times. In 1969 I was chasing a toddler and writing exactly zip, zero, nada.

You can read the poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49487