Lucille Clifton

there seems a purposeful ordering to the sections and even in the new title.

The more immediately recognizable style of “6/27/06 seventy”—the date and age of her birthday—recasts a poem of a similar title that appears in Voices.

The poem was written, we know, from early drafts in 2006 and appears completed in 2008

composed in e-mail then printed,

Clifton, who attended the conference many times (and commented on the awkwardness of its place name), often used the daily practice to full advantage—indeed, a number of poems from Voices appear to have taken first form, or perhaps been polished further, at Squaw Valley

The poems “haiku” and “An American Story” stem from files from that conference.

they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine.

What Watches Me? A Writing and Drawing Book for You. (Children’s Book) Washington, DC: US Dept. Health, Education & Welfare and the Central Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory, c. 1968

“I stand here before you having survived 3 bouts with cancer, a kidney transplant, the loss of my husband and two of my children and arthritis like you wouldn’t believe. Indeed won’t you celebrate with me?”