Humor as Clap Back in Lucille Clifton’s Poetry

Abstract

A prolific but neglected writer, African-American poet Lucille Sayles Clifton has penned a memoir, several books of poetry, and work for school-age children. Clifton often uses humor in response to others’ depictions or criticisms of her. In this manner, she not only rejects any attempts to undermine the spaces she occupies as poet and as woman, she also uses those attempts to strengthen her own position(s). For example, in one poem, Clifton advises her offspring: “children / when they ask you/why is your mother so funny / tell them, she is a poet / she ain’t got no sense.” Claiming senselessness as a suit of armor, the poet is now free to continue her work. This essay will show how Clifton uses humor, irony, and snippets from history throughout her work to admonish the male species, to pay homage to her hips and assert the transgressive black body, and to celebrate the reality of her life despite the fact that “everyday something has tried to kill me.”