Clifton's Body
Wendy Sumner Winter

”Tota mulier in utero.”
Woman is a womb.

Since Aristotle laid out his philosophy of the “second sex,” women have wrestled with this notion of definition by and through our bodies. We have derived and been assigned our identity by that measure, willingly and unwillingly. Some women come away from this assignment angrily, while some, like Lucille Clifton, seem to revel in it, creating a monument to the powerful and fragile feminine form in her verse.

In several poems Clifton communicates the interconnection of her identity as a woman and the state of her body. Her identity resides both within and without her body – an antagonism and companion. The poems “homage to my hips,” “wishes for sons,” “poem to my uterus,” “lumpectomy eve,” and “scar” all celebrate and nurture the image of strength intertwined with weakness which so illuminates the experience of living in the body of woman. Throughout, she uses sparse language – averse, it seems, to ornamental and superfluous words. This, too, is indicative of the kind of woman Clifton seems to be: no nonsense.

We know from interviews with her and commentary about her, that Clifton writes her own life as a “witness.” In her economic language, she gives literary form to the sorrow, pain, and glory of living in her body. The cycle of life and death is played out over and over in the same body, and over and over in Clifton’s poetry. In the process of these five poems we see a fierceness and magnificence evolve into a piquant, savory acquiescence to her bodily deterioration.

In “homage to my hips” Clifton begins this fierce journey. It is declarative and celebratory in nature, defiant of the social stereotype of beauty placed upon the psyche of women. It recalls Whitman’s “Body Electric,” but, characteristically, uses the language more sparingly. The verse, clipped and joyful, punches with enthusiasm and will not allow a negative judgment to be tendered. Clifton sees perfection in her “big hips.” They are free, not enslaved, girdled, by the social notion of feminine perfection or by literally constricting clothing. They “don’t fit into little/ petty places.” They are magical, able to bewitch a man and “spin him like a top!” Hips, signifying fertility, are power for her.

Next, we move to “wishes for sons.” Clifton’s humor is knitted tightly with a wry thread of imprecation. What she, as a woman, bears in her body, as a matter of course, would wreak havoc on the life of a man. The limits and boundaries created by the condition of Womanhood are unknown by sons. This separation, this lonely island of Womanhood, is, in a sense, a place of victory because the woman fully and solely possesses it. Woman bears the horror of menstruation, cyclical and constant, with an inherent grace that cannot be understood by men, by sons and brothers. The clots, coming at their own will, do not defeat her. Again, this weakness is her strength.

Here we turn to the melancholy tones of “poem to my uterus.” Her identity has been contained within her uterus, shown in the image of a sock, a stocking, a bag. The struggle of definition is most poignant at “where am I going / old girl / without you.” Who is she without her uterus? Is she still a woman? Is her identity being taken from her? The loss of her “estrogen kitchen / black bag of desire” changes her and creates a new self. Yet, even so, there is a preservation of “me” in the end. The “me” is something separate from the body. We can’t, nor does she seem to, see clearly what is left, but there remains the sense that there is something.

The feeling of loss is continued in “lumpectomy eve.” Again, her body, here her breast, a source of life before is now dying: “lost in loss and the need / to feed that turns at last / on itself.” The image of the suckling infant is to be replaced by the cannibalistic character of cancer. The cycle of life and death is revisited and the only comfort her body finds is within her own body, turning inward toward itself – “the one breast / comforting the other.” A loneliness is evident, but comfort is internal, amongst the members of her body. Strength still resides in this weakest state.

Finally, “scar” illuminates the separateness of identity and body. The scar “rides” her, is not a part of her, though it cannot be discarded. What, who, she is is distinct from the condition of her body – the external. She has a relationship to it. It is a symbol of “before and after,” though it does not define her. While she names it – possesses it – “ribbon of hunger / and desire / empty pocket flap,” it has no name for her except “woman I ride.” The scar, the body, is defined by her, not the other way around.

Here is the savory acquiescence. The scar is a fact, the lumpectomy a fact. Yet within each point of loss, power is found and identity is maintained. We never see Clifton cower or complain. We see her triumph over and over again, within her body and without. We see very clearly a celebration of the female body, imbued with the bittersweet rhythm of the cycle of life and death.

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