What the Mirror Said by Lucille Clifton
What the Mirror Said
Lucille Cliftonlisten,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!
SELECTED BY ASHLEY M. JONES
This is my favorite poem, and Clifton is my favorite poet. This poem reminds me that no matter how small I feel, no matter what the world tries to say, the mirror won’t lie and it says I am somebody!
Lucille Clifton is a master of capturing the human condition. She is a master of layered brevity—the poems seem small, but there’s so much there.
Clifton, through her poems, taught me that I could be myself on the page, and she taught me that being understood is important—accessibility does not compromise poetic rigor.
ABOUT ASHLEY M. JONES
Ashley M. Jones is the Poet Laureate of Alabama (2022-2026). She is the first person of color and youngest person in Alabama’s history to hold this position. Jones is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Lullaby for the Grieving. She is the co-editor of WHAT THINGS COST: An Anthology for the People, and she has earned fellowships and awards from many organizations, including the Academy of American Poets, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Her poems are published in POETRY, Academy of American Poets, and The Oxford American, and her work has been featured by outlets including PBS, CNN, The BBC, Good Morning America, ABC News, and the New York Times. Jones is the Associate Director of the University Honors Program at UAB, the executive director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, and she is a PhD student in English at Old Dominion University.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton by Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions, 2012. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 combines all eleven of Lucille Clifton’s published collections with more than fifty previously unpublished poems. The unpublished poems feature early poems from 1965–1969, a collection-in-progress titled the book of days (2008), and a poignant selection of final poems. An insightful foreword by Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison and comprehensive afterword by noted poet Kevin Young frames Clifton’s lifetime body of work, providing the definitive statement about this major America poet’s career.” (Source)
ABOUT LUCILLE CLIFTON
Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was rated one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. Clifton’s honors include an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a Lannan Literary Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shelley Memorial Award, the YM-YWHA Poetry Center Discovery Award, and the 2007 Ruth Lilly Prize. Lucille Clifton died… (more)
Read more poems by Lucille Clifton • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 33 of Poems We Carry, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry—a living archive I’ve nurtured for two decades. For this milestone series, I invited writers I deeply admire to share poems that have meant something to them over time.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: woman • identity • empowerment • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
