won't you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

Lucille Clifton, "won't you celebrate with me" from Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1991 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., boaeditions.org.

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Poems by This Author

4/30/92 for rodney king by Lucille Clifton so blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton may the tide cutting greens by Lucille Clifton curling them around far memory by Lucille Clifton my knees recall the pockets here rests by Lucille Clifton my sister Josephine homage to my hips by Lucille Clifton these hips are big hips. it was a dream by Lucille Clifton in which my greater self jasper texas 1998 by Lucille Clifton i am a man's head hunched in the road miss rosie by Lucille Clifton when I watch you mulberry fields by Lucille Clifton they thought the field was wasting my dream about being white by Lucille Clifton hey music and me only white poem in praise of menstruation by Lucille Clifton if there is a river poem to my uterus by Lucille Clifton you uterus sisters by Lucille Clifton me and you be sisters... sorrows by Lucille Clifton who would believe them winged the earth is a living thing by Lucille Clifton is a black shambling bear the lost baby poem by Lucille Clifton the time i dropped your almost body down the lost women by Lucille Clifton i need to know their names to my last period by Lucille Clifton well, girl, goodbye wishes for sons by Lucille Clifton i wish them cramps.

Further Reading

Poems for Mother's Day It's all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickinson Jugglers by Francisco Aragón Mother by Lola Ridge Mother by Herman de Coninck Mother's Day by David Young Song by H. D. The Angel that presided 'oer my birth by William Blake To My Mother by Edgar Allan Poe To My Mother by Robert Louis Stevenson To My Mother by Christina Rossetti Video: Having a Coke with You by Frank O'Hara [Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome] by Christina Rossetti Poems about Living "I'm afraid of death" by Kathleen Ossip Another Elegy by Jericho Brown Ashes of Life by Edna St. Vincent Millay August, 1953 by David Wojahn Characteristics of Life by Camille T. Dungy Coda by Marilyn Hacker Daily Life by Susan Wood Difficult Body by Mark Wunderlich Elegy in Joy [excerpt] by Muriel Rukeyser far memory by Lucille Clifton First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky Frozen by Natasha Head How to Uproot a Tree by Jennifer K. Sweeney Insomnia by Alicia Suskin Ostriker Life by Joe Brainard Life is Fine by Langston Hughes Little Night Prayer by Péter Kántor Living in Numbers by Claire Lee Lost and Found by Ron Padgett Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus [excerpt] by Denise Levertov On Living by Nazim Hikmet One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch Primitive State [excerpt] by Anselm Berrigan Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky Spent by Mark Doty sugar is smoking by Jason Schneiderman Tear It Down by Jack Gilbert The Layers by Stanley Kunitz The Pain by Laura Kasischke The Secret by Denise Levertov Thrown as if Fierce & Wild by Dean Young What the Living Do by Marie Howe What Wild-Eyed Murderer by Peter Meinke Where I Live by Maxine Kumin Yellow Beak by Stephen Dobyns