Description: Landmark volume containing all of Lucille Clifton's published work and 55 previously unpublished poems. Foreword by Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison.
Review Quotes: "If there is any doubt that Lucille Clifton (1963-2010) was one of the powerfully original poetic voices of our time, this volume should dispel it. Poem after poem, book after book, that varied but ever vigorous voice sang fearlessly and gracefully... Clifton's was a multifarious intelligence that could at times seem otherworldly; she inhabited and was attentive to both physical and spiritual plains; she spoke with the dead and the living with confidence. While her work could be contemporary and personal, she was often drawn to tell and retell ancient tales... She was an enlightened and enlightening poet, and this collection shines a welcome light on her work." --Open Books: A Poem Emporium
A selection for Ms. Magazine's 2012 Best Books by Women, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 is a "welcome anthology, representative of more than 40 years of Clifton's writing. If you're not yet familiar with Clifton's incredible mix of the familial and the political, this is one book you need right now." --Ms. Magazine
"What is so valuable is that she goes directly and not without anger and confusion into these life-and-death matters, allowing the reader to empathize, and share, in her recognition that survival is a triumph. What is even more valuable is that she recognizes that the reader too survives ... When Clifton writes such poems, she is among the very few true poets of our times." --The Nation