Merriweather, the pastor at Macedonia Baptist Church in Buffalo, with developing her appreciation for the spoken word. Clifton would also later credit Reverend Thomas J. Clifton later addressed Thelma’s frustrations in the poem “fury,” which is dedicated to her mother. Her ambitions were thwarted by Samuel, who forbade his wife from writing poetry. Though Thelma had received only a primary school education, she aspired to be a poet. Clifton’s mother, too, was an early literary influence. During her childhood in Buffalo, Clifton listened to oral histories transmitted by her grandmothers and aunts. In writing poems that centralized Black women’s lives, Lucille Clifton addressed subjects such as sexual abuse, the mundane discomforts of menstruation, and the disappointment of miscarriage with wit and directness, emerging as one of the most influential poets of the Black Arts Movement.Ĭlifton was born Thelma Lucille Sayles in Depew, New York to Samuel, a steelworker, and Thelma, a laundress.
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