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    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City"
    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City"
    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City"
    Ebook37 pages24 minutes

    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535825894
    A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City"

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      A Study Guide for Lucille Clifton's "In the Inner City" - Gale

      12

      In the Inner City

      Lucille Clifton

      1969

      Introduction

      Lucille Clifton's in the inner city is the first poem in her first collection of poetry, Good Times, published in 1969. This volume, while no longer in print, is available at public libraries and through booksellers. in the inner city is also included in Clifton's later collection, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969–1980 (1987). This volume is still in print and widely available.

      The brief poem, in the economy of fifty-four words, speaks in the voices of the residents of the inner city, comparing how they feel about their home as well as how they feel about those who live in wealthier districts of the city. The era in which in the inner city was written was one fraught with civil unrest and violence. Clifton's work, however, while taking the political and social situation of the times into account, manages to transcend its historical context with grace and irony.

      Increasingly, Clifton has become recognized as a major American poet. Her death from cancer in 2010 evoked widespread sadness and praise. As Elizabeth Alexander wrote in the New Yorker, I do not think there is an American poet as beloved as Clifton, or one whose influence radiated as widely.

      Author Biography

      Thelma Lucille Sayles, later known as Lucille Clifton, was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Clifton, like her mother and her daughter, was born with six fingers on each hand; she refers to this strange genetic link in a number of her poems, interviews, and prose writings. Clifton's parents were Samuel and Thelma Sayles. The family was poor, and her parents were poorly educated; her father could barely read and was unable to write. Clifton's mother, however, composed poetry. The family moved to Buffalo, New York, when Clifton was seven years old. The Sayles household was a turbulent place: Samuel Sayles was an abusive man who drank heavily. He sexually molested Clifton when she was young, and he was cruel to his wife, who also had epilepsy.

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