Even Astonishment Project #2

Reading Lucille Clifton's "study the masters"

Each week I am reading poems from the anthology Home, edited by Christian Wiman. Read more about the origin of the Even Astonishment Project.

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A Vivid Setting That Felt Alive—What details made the setting vivid?

• Title of the Work: “study the masters”

• Author: Lucille Clifton

  

  Lucille Clifton and her children. Photo: Courtesy of Sidney Clifton This was the first photo I ever saw of Lucille Clifton. It was in her NYT obituary. I cut it out as a promise to myself: mothers can be poets.

• Quote or Moment:

  “you would understand form and line

  and discipline and order and

  america.”

• What I Noticed: This poem moves! In just 75 words, Clifton takes us on an epic journey. I love how the title sets up an expectation that she shifts immediately. In no accounting is her Aunt Timmie a master. In no way is ironing work that “counts” or that we can learn from.

  
  And yet.

  
  Clifton creates a powerful, creative setting. The master somehow imbues the ironed sheets with the songs of the Cherokee and the Masai. The domestic space opens to become a miraculous house that contains mansions. Sleep and dreams, women’s work, song and rhythm—this is where a poet learns her craft. This is where our whole tangled history comes to bear on our poetics.

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Writing Provocations

• Write a poem where the title sets up expectations that the poem only fulfills obliquely. It might be easier to work backwards: to add a title to a poem already in revisions. Inspired by Ann Collins’ recent story, I’ve been using Finnish Proverbs as titles.

• Write an ekphrastic poem with the title “study the masters.” Art Every Day is a fantastic resource.

• What role does setting play in your work? Are you a poet of place? If you sat at my desk, you could see the cherry, chestnut, and walnut trees that show up again and again in my poems. I am looking forward to Janisse Ray’s new book called Journey in Place.