Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), who grew up near Buffalo, was an American poet, historian, children's author, and professor. The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist visited the NYS Writers Institute for a reading during our early years.
i am running into a new year
By Lucille Clifton
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
Published in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980
Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in DePew, Erie County, and grew up in Buffalo. She studied at Howard University before transferring to SUNY Fredonia, near her hometown.
She was discovered as a poet by Langston Hughes (via Ishmael Reed, who shared her poems), and Hughes published Clifton's poetry in his highly influential anthology, The Poetry of the Negro (1970). In 1988, Clifton became the first author to have two books of poetry named finalists for one year's Pulitzer Prize.
(photo credit: Mark Lennihan/AP)