wishes for sons

“wishes for sons” was written by poet Lucille Clifton and published in her sixth collection of poetry, Next: New Poems (1987). Next: New Poems was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize alongside Clifton’s collected works, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir: 1969-1980, in the year 1987. “wishes for sons” describes the commonplace burdens that exist at the intersection of girlhood and womanhood, exposing how those burdens are too often misunderstood, dismissed, or altogether unknown to cisgender men (see: Summary). Clifton interrogates the normalized pain and suffering women and people who menstruate endure based on sex and gender, subverting readers’ expectations by wishing these experiences upon her own sons (see: Poem Analysis).

Clifton is committed to truth-telling in the face of societal silence. Her poetry combines the razor-sharp wit and identity politics of Gwendolyn Brooks with the distinct stylistic choices of Emily Dickinson. Clifton’s poetry offers readers a way forward through the sexism and racism of the past and present moment through her optimistic, albeit realistic, verse.

Poet Biography

Lucille Clifton was an African American poet, writer, and educator born in DePew, New York on June 27, 1936. Clifton grew up in Buffalo, New York, where she graduated early from the City Honors School at the age of 16 (1953). She went on to study at Howard University from 1953 to 1955, before transferring to the State University of New York at Fredonia to be closer to her hometown and family.

Clifton was discovered by poet Langston Hughes, who published her poetry in his highly read and regarded anthology, The Poetry of the Negro (1970). Clifton writes from the intersection of race and gender, centering African American history, culture, and relationships within her poetic verse as they relate to her womanhood. Her work emphasizes endurance, strength, and Black beauty.

The most striking detail about Clifton’s poetry is what is missing. Clifton’s poems often lack capitalization and punctuation, allowing her to distill each piece to its most essential argument. This minimalist structure is a hallmark across Clifton’s body of work, and while her poems may appear small on the page, they grapple with extremely large and altogether complex thematic material (see: Themes).

Clifton is the author of several collections of poetry. Her first full-length collection, Good Times, was published in 1969 and named by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of that same year. Good Times showcases Clifton’s sparse, succinct style. The poems within this volume are clear-sighted and clever, exploring images of African American urban life as well as Clifton’s role as matriarch of her family of seven. Clifton’s sophomore collection, Good News about the Earth: New Poems (1972), furthers the connection between race, gender, and social life explored in Good Times, drawing upon the political and social upheavals Clifton experienced in the late 1960s and 70s while writing the manuscript (see: Contextual Analysis). An Ordinary Woman (1974), Two-Headed Woman (1980), and Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir: 1969-1980 (1987) interrogate Clifton’s role as woman and poet, deviating from the racial themes that saturated her previous works, in turn, centering her own body as a source of poetic inspiration. In total, Clifton wrote 14 collections of poetry, as well as a myriad of stand-alone children’s books, and the extremely popular Everett Anderson series of juvenile fiction, making African American heritage accessible to a wide range of age groups.

Clifton is a highly respected and prolific poet. In 1988, Clifton became the only author to have two collections of poetry selected in the same year as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir:1969-1980 (1987), and Next: New Poems (1987). In 1996, her collection The Terrible Stories (1996) was a finalist for the National Book Award, and in 2000, her collection of poetry Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems (2000) won the National Book Award for poetry. Clifton was the 2007 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a prestigious literary award sponsored by The Poetry Foundation, granting the winning poet $100,000 to further their creative career. In 2013, Clifton’s posthumously published collection, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 (2012), was awarded the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry.

Clifton was a Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities for over 30 years, teaching English and Creative Writing at various universities across the United States. Her work is celebrated for its distinctly humane perspective on the joys and pitfalls of African American life.

Lucille Clifton died on February 13, 2010, in Baltimore, Maryland, and remains a seminal part of the American poetic canon.

Poem Text

Clifton, Lucille. “wishes for sons.” 1987. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

Lucille Clifton’s poem “wishes for sons” describes the embarrassments, challenges, and outright physical pain women undergo as they transition from girlhood into womanhood. Clifton wishes the burdens of womanhood onto the boys that will grow up to be men to foster mutual understanding of a commonly gendered experience.

Stanza 1 discusses the end of girlhood as marked by the menstrual cycle. The poet wishes the sons “cramps” (Line 1), “the last tampon” (Line 3), and strange surroundings, exemplifying the inconvenience of an unexpected period through physical symptoms and the lack of practical items to help ease them. Stanza 2 introduces the unpredictability of pain, wishing boys the same shame that occurs when period blood stains “a white skirt” (Line 6), or worse yet, the fear that comes when the period does not.

Stanza 3 describes the later years of womanhood, detailing menopausal symptoms such as “hot flashes” (Line 8) and “clots” (Line 9), while Stanza 4 exposes the essential truth of the poem: The poet does not wish boys the same pain, but rather, writes a plea for their understanding of the invisible violence women suffer through on a regular basis.