By Norma Brickner | On June 4, 2020 | Updated February 27, 2024 | Comments (8)
Lucille Clifton (1936 – 2010) was a poet, teacher, and children’s book author whose life and career began in western New York. Here is a selection of 10 poems by Lucille Clifton, a small sampling of her prolific output.
Clifton’s widely respected poetry focuses on social issues, the Black American experience, and female identity. Her poetry has been praised for its wisdom and use of strong imagery; the way she constructed her poems’ lines even give meaning to the spacing of words.
Her poetry is recognizable for its purposeful lack of punctuation and capitalization. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On May 15, 2020 | Updated June 22, 2023 | Comments (0)
Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925), an influential yet undervalued American poet, was an energetic evangelist of the art of poetry for all her adult life. Here is presented “Lilacs,” said to be the one of the poet’s own favorites, and among the poems she recited most often in her many public readings.
First published first published in the New York Evening Post on September 18, 1920, “Lilacs” went on to be included in a 1922 modernist poetry anthology.
Finally, “Lilacs” became part of Lowell’s 1925 collection What’s O’ Clock, which received the Pulitzer Prize the following year. Unfortunately, the poet died before receiving this honor. She was only 51, having suffered from poor health for some time. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 18, 2020 | Updated August 31, 2022 | Comments (2)
“The Prisoner” is perhaps one of the best known of the achingly beautiful, haunting poems by Emily Brontë, the English author best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights.
Of the three literary Brontë sisters — Charlotte, Anne, and Emily,—it was always, from the start was, the latter who was regarded as the most brilliant poet, perhaps even the greatest genius among them.
“The Prisoner” was one of the poems included in the volume of poetry the sisters, led by Charlotte, printed at their own expense as a way to break into the world of publishing. Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Published in 1846, it sold a pathetic two copies. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 13, 2020 | Updated August 31, 2022 | Comments (2)
Marianne Moore (1887 – 1972) isn’t an easy poet to read or digest. Yet the patient and diligent reader will be amply rewarded. Here are 12 poems by Marianne Moore sampled from a long writing career that blossomed in the early 1920s and started even earlier than that.
Moore was a modernist poet who both influenced and was influenced by other modernist poets. In Marianne Moore: A Literary Life, biographer Charles Molesworth, attempted to sum up what made her the poet she came to be, not an easy task: Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 10, 2020 | Updated August 28, 2025 | Comments (4)
“Marriage” is a 1923 modernist poem by Marianne Moore that’s considered one of her most fascinating, yet challenging works. Requiring a great deal of insight to fully appreciate, it’s presented here in full, with links to two excellent and thorough analyses.
Marianne Moore (1887 – 1972 ) has stood the test of time as one of the pre-eminent American poets. Born in St. Louis, she graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1909, and had her first work published in Poetry magazine in 1915. Collected Poems (1951) won a Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award. Read More→
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