Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York in 1936. She is the mother of six adult children, and has worked since she was twelve years old when she held her first job, working in a Beauty Shop. She attended Howard University for one year in the 1950's and is currently Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Her nine books of poetry include The Terrible Stories (1995); The Book of Light (1993); Quilting: Poems 1987-90 (1991); Next: New Poems (1987); Good Woman, Poems and a Memoir 1969-80 (1987); which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Two-Headed Woman (1980) also a Pulitzer Prize nominee and the winner of the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize; An Ordinary Woman (1974); Good News About the Earth (1972); and Good Times (1969). She has also written Generations: A Memoir (1976) and more than sixteen books for children. Her honors include an Emmy Award, a Lannan Literary Award, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the YM-YWHA Poetry Center Discovery Award. In 1999 she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. |
