Generations: A Memoir by Lucille Clifton (English) Paperback Book

Description: Generations by Lucille Clifton, Tracy K. Smith A moving family biography in which the poet traces her family history back through Jim Crow, the slave trade, and all the way to the women of the Dahomey people in West Africa.A moving family biography in which the poet traces her family history back through Jim Crow, the slave trade, and all the way to the women of the Dahomey people in West Africa.Buffalo, New York. A fathers funeral. Memory.In Generations, Lucille Cliftons formidable poetic gift emerges in prose, giving us a memoir of stark and profound beauty. Her story focuses on the lives of the Sayles family- Caroline, "born among the Dahomey people in 1822," who walked north from New Orleans to Virginia in 1830 when she was eight years old; Lucy, the first black woman to be hanged in Virginia; and Gene, born with a withered arm, the son of a carpetbagger and the authors grandmother.Clifton tells us about the life of an African American family through slavery and hard times and beyond, the death of her father and grandmother, but also all the life and love and triumph that came before and remains even now.Generations is a powerful work of determination and affirmation. "I look at my husband," Clifton writes, "and my children and I feel the Dahomey women gathering in my bones." FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) was an American poet known for her work focusing on the African American experience and family life. Winner of the National Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Clifton is the only author to have two books of poetry nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She is best known for her collections Two-Headed Woman, Next, Good Woman, and Quilting. In addition to her several poetry collections, Clifton also wrote numerous books for children, including her Everett Anderson series.Tracy K. Smith is a writer and former United States Poet Laureate. The author of a memoir, Ordinary Light, and four poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, she is a professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Review "Those qualities—celebration, acknowledgment, recognition—are also abundantly present in Generations. . . In Generations, she tells the uniquely Black and quintessentially American story of her family. . . . Clifton brings a folksy poetry and an economy that amounts to a magic trick." —Clifford Thompson, Commonweal"Impressive—honest, clear-eyed with a shapeliness natural to poets. . . . In addition to possessing the ease and intimacy of Cliftons poetry, Generations speaks to, for, and from fictional and posthumous lives—Moses, Medgar Evers, Amazons, Bob Marley, Sleeping Beauty, etc. She is comfortable and knowing about the dead. . . . Lucille is another word for light, which is the soul of enlightenment. And she knew it." —Toni Morrison"Generations is a book about staring history in the face. . . . she (Clifton) faced the profound absurdity of being alive." —Lavelle Porter, JSTOR Daily "Of great poets whose poems are kin to Cliftons, I think of Emily Dickinson; to Dickinsons intense compression Clifton adds explicit historical consciousness. And of Pablo Neruda: Clifton subtracts hyperbole from his elemental clarity." —Elizabeth Alexander, The New Yorker"Lucille Clifton helped me hear things—helps all of those who love her work hear things that they would rather ignore." —Reginald Dwayne Betts"[Cliftons] works are explicitly historical and of a palpable present moment." —The Paris Review"You can easily see the reflection of [Cliftons] tight, spare poetry in this exceedingly compact book, which is all the more affecting for its light touch and suggestive sketches of all the American Sayles, including a few of the white ones." —Kirkus Review"[Generations] is a song of self. All the defiant joy of [Lucille Cliftons] verse is present in this family history, beginning with the ancestor who walked cross-country only to be sold into slavery at age 8. For those whose histories were stolen through violence, this is a proclamation of power and resistance." —Jessica Ferri, Los Angeles Times"Lucille Clifton is amazing. . . [A] powerful book about looking for family and family roots. . . What is beautiful in [Generations] is the sounds of the voices . . . of family coming through the story." —Tess Taylor, "All Things Considered," NPR Review Quote "Impressive--honest, clear-eyed with a shapeliness natural to poets. . . . In addition to possessing the ease and inti-macy of Cliftons poetry, Generations speaks to, for, and from fictional and posthumous lives--Moses, Medgar Evers, Amazons, Bob Marley, Sleeping Beauty, etc. She is comfortable and knowing about the dead. . . . Lucille is another word for light, which is the soul of enlightenment. And she knew it." --Toni Morrison "Of great poets whose poems are kin to Cliftons, I think of Emily Dickinson; to Dickinsons intense compression Clifton adds explicit historical consciousness. And of Pablo Neruda: Clifton subtracts hyperbole from his elemental clarity." --Elizabeth Alexander, The New Yorker "Lucille Clifton helped me hear things--helps all of those who love her work hear things that they would rather ignore." --Reginald Dwayne Betts "[Cliftons] works are explicitly historical and of a palpable present moment." -- The Paris Review "You can easily see the reflection of [Cliftons] tight, spare poetry in this exceedingly compact book, which is all the more affecting for its light touch and suggestive sketches of all the American Sayles, including a few of the white ones." -- Kirkus Review Details ISBN1681375877 Author Tracy K. Smith Short Title Generations Pages 96 Language English Year 2021 ISBN-10 1681375877 ISBN-13 9781681375878 Format Paperback Subtitle A Memoir Country of Publication United States Place of Publication New York Publisher The New York Review of Books, Inc Imprint NYRB Classics Publication Date 2021-11-16 AU Release Date 2021-11-16 NZ Release Date 2021-11-16 US Release Date 2021-11-16 UK Release Date 2021-11-16 DEWEY 811.54 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:133884730;

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