Jim Calderwood
Professor Toliver
Engl. 121X
25 April 2003

        [1] Lucille Clifton and her work are not world-renowned, but her poetry, including the poem "homage to my hips," insists that they should be. In an Internet teaching note about Clifton, James Miller remarks that her "poetry is . . . so accessible that careless readers may overlook the way she . . . achieves her poetic effects," and Hank Lazer states in a review of Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Clifton that "when written about, her poems are described and praised but rarely given a reading that grants their depth and complexity" (760). A profundity in Clifton's poetry also is suggested by Haki Madhubuti in his article "Lucille Clifton: Warm Water, Greased Legs, and Dangerous Poetry" with the declaration that "in everything she creates . . . there is a message" (150). And Clifton's "homage to my hips" exemplifies her body of poetry, which Theodore Hudson and B.J. Bolden characterize as having "poems [that] are short, . . . incisive" and "continue to open as the reader contemplates or reexperiences them" (172). In a humorous, incantational tone probes the serious subjects of freedom, equality, and self-esteem. The speaker in this fifteen-line open form or free verse poem uses a common object but unusual writing subject, hips, to explore these subjects in relation to the roles of woman and African American. Moving from the size of her hips as associated with confinement (lines 1-5) to the freedom of her hips (lines 5-10), the speaker concludes by describing the might and magic of her hips (lines 11-15), implying a connection between these qualities and the issues surrounding the relationship between women and men, women and societal values, and African Americans and the power elite of United States society.

        [2] The feminist dimension of the poem is conveyed by its title and focus, the subject of their own hips being a rare concern or topic of discussion by men, and Felice Aull in a short note about the poem stresses the importance in it of the awareness of the body. In contrast to prevailing images and standards of female beauty in modern American culture, especially on television shows, in fashion magazines, and in advertising, the speaker exults that "these hips are big hips" (line 1). The speaker's tone, sassy and self-assured, is conveyed by the insistent repetition and parallelism, components of style and syntax, in "these hips/ are free hips" (lines 5-6), "these hips are mighty hips" (line 11), and "these hips are magic hips" (line 12). The speaker is not only unafraid of the word "hips" but is positively emphatic in repeating it. The parallelism becomes almost the rhetorical figure anaphora in the speaker's repetitive description of constraints in "they don't fit" (line 4) and "they don't like" (line 6), as well as the opposite in "they go where they want to go" (line 9) and "they do what they want to do" (line 10). With fearless forcefulness, the speaker repeats the word hips 9 times, and the word they or them as a substitute for hips 8 times, in an emphatic accumulation of 17 times, all the more notable in the short lines of the short poem. In Clifton's later poetry, Justin Quinn observes that "themes such as feminism and sex" are filtered "through the lens of mythological personae"; Andrea Rushing focuses on later poems written about the goddess Kali, in which "Clifton juxtaposes archetypal imagery about female generative and destructive power and insists on the tense mystery implicit in that union of opposites" (219). The speaker of "homage to my hips," however, is a real woman.

        [3] The speaker's hips through the combined figures of speech personification and synecdoche represent the speaker herself in a distinctive feature of women's anatomy necessary for childbearing, as well as for locomotion. She is unashamed of them and their size, and also asserts in a simile that, opposed to her hips' being "held back" (line 7) or "enslaved" (line 8) by a society that is by implication predominantly controlled by whites and males, "i have known them/ to put a spell on a man and/ spin him like a top!" (lines 13-15). The rapid transition from the implied metaphor of the personified hips as possessing magic, like a sorceress, to the simile of a male spinning like a top verges on a mixed metaphor, which helps to suggest inherent female power in the rapidity of the imagery's accumulation. The visual and kinetic imagery of the passive and delimited motion of the spinning top, representing the male, contrasts with the opposites in "they go where they want to go./ they do what they want to do" (lines 9-10), representing the female. The rhythm of the latter lines emphasizes the verbs and thus the potent activity of the speaker's hips and speaker: "they GO where they WANT to GO./ they DO what they WANT to DO." Clifton's handling of imagery, figurative language, and rhythm helps to validate the general observation about her poetry by Jean Marbella that "Clifton's poems are spare yet rich."

        [4] As suggested by the poem, women have been oppressed not only by the implied esthetic criterion of slenderness in the mass media but also by limitations in the workplace and in personal relationships with men. The latter ideas are communicated in diction by the generality or abstractness of such words as "space" (line 2) that the hips need "to/ move around in" (lines 2-3) or the small "places" (line 5) that the hips "don't fit into" (line 4). Connotation, alliteration, and repetition are at work in the reference to the "little/ petty places" (lines 4-5) into which the hips don't "fit," the alliterating p-sound in "petty places" reinforcing the scorn for the smallness of oppressive mentality forcing the limited occupational and personal roles into which women have been confined. The alliterating m-sound in "mighty" (line 11) and "magic" (line 12) in the female speaker's assertion that the hips have these qualities creates a contrast to the "petty places." Jane Cooper observes about Clifton's poetry in general its "simplicity of language" (94); likewise, Audrey McCluskey says that its "language remains direct, economical, and simply stated" (140). This feature contributes thematically in "homage to my hips."

        [5] The speaker also implies that a parallel exists between the oppression of women and the oppression of African Americans. In diction, the generality and abstractness of the words "free" (line 6), "held back" (line 7), and "enslaved" (line 8), as well as their connotations of the history of African Americans in the United States, help broaden, in more than one sense, what the hips represent to include racial as well as gender concerns. Hence, the scope of the second part of the poem (lines 5-10) widens, including the poem's longest line -- "These hips have never been enslaved" (line 8) -- now combining feminist and African American desire for freedom over constraint. The hips should not be confined by constrictive garments, male esthetic criteria, or forced roles; similarly, African Americans should not be hemmed in by limitations of their freedom in political, economic, or social spheres.

        [6] In some sense, the theme of the rebellion against constraint is absorbed into the form of the poem, as shown by the overlapping of the second and third parts of the poem that is created by its formal elements. While the series of six single lines containing complete sentences is begun in the section combining African American concerns and feminist concerns -- "they don't like to be held back. / these hips have never been enslaved. / they go where they want to go. / they do what they want to do" (lines 7-10) -- the remainder of this stylistic component overflows -- like the hips' overflowing -- into the poem's last part, which cyclically returns to the feminist focus of the poem's first part. Thus, the staccato assertiveness of single-line declarative sentences continues with "these hips are mighty hips./ these hips are magic hips" (lines 11-12). Likewise, overall line length paradoxically combines and conveys the ideas of conflicting forcefulness and confinement. In contrast to the bigness of the hips, the lines of the poem are generally short (a kind of smallness), ranging from three syllables (line 6)to eight syllables (line 8), with the average line length being six syllables. However, while the brevity of the lines contrasts with the size of the hips and helps to suggest the constraints into which the speaker would be pressed or oppressed by men or society or Caucasians, that brevity also enhances the forcefulness conveyed by the stylistic feature of the generally short declarative sentences that they contain. Further, the brevity of the three syllable line "are free hips" (line 6), helps put the emphasis on freedom, while the lengthiness of the longest lines is reserved for "these hips have never been enslaved" (line 9) and "to put a spell on a man and" (line 14).

        [7] A conflict, echoing the speaker's against large antagonistic forces, further occurs in the overall form of the poem through the neat symmetry of opening and closing sections that contrasts with the apparently untidy overlap of the poem's first and second, as well as second and third parts. The enjambment of the first three lines is echoed by that of the last three lines, contributing to the poem's cyclical or A-B-A form. While the overlapping of the poem's parts helps to suggest a rebellion against constraints, as well as the interrelation of the roles of woman and African American, the cyclical form recalls the kinetic imagery of the poem's most vivid figure of speech: the power of the hips to spin a man like a top (lines 13-15). The enjambment in lines 1-3, 4-5, 5-6, and 13-15, strikingly contrasts the forcefully end-stopped lines 7-12, while the rebellious omission of punctuation at the end of the first line helps to suggest the creation of the space that the hips are said to need to move around in (lines 1-3).

        [8] The motif of conflict -- female against male, female against constrictive societal images, African American against Caucasian society -- is expressed in the paradoxical conflicts of other stylistic components of the poem as well. For example, the poem's omission of capitalization helps communicate an earthy candor in conflict with conventions of usage, suggestive of the revolt against restraints that is the poem's subject. However, that same lack of capitalization demotes a capital "I," in referring to the first person or speaker, to the lowercase "i," which might suggest that the speaker has suffered the diminishment or loss of self esteem created by the pressures against which she rebels. But the only time that the first person singular pronoun is used is in the forcefully enjambed or run-on last three lines of the poem asserting the power of the speaker's hips, and women, to put men into a spin: "i have known them / to put a spell on a man and / spin him like a top!" (lines 13-15). In the forcefulness and exultant tone conveyed by the exclamation point, contrasting with the only other punctuation mark used in the poem (the period), as well as the alliterating explosive p-sound in the lines, the speaker climactically puts her own spin on the problems of women and African Americans in seeking personal freedom. Alexa Sandmann states about Clifton's poetry in general that "without worrying about convention, about boundaries -- created either physically or emotionally -- Clifton shares her perceptions of life by writing about the feelings humans share" (761). One of the most basic of those feelings is the desire for personal freedom, which is embodied, in more than one sense of the word, in "homage to my hips."
 
 
 

[ New Page ]

Aull, Felice. "Clifton, Lucille. 'homage to my hips.'" <http://endeavor. med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/clifton952-des-.html>.

Clifton, Lucille. "Homage to my hips." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 7^th ed. Eds. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry Jacobs. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 2004. 768.

Cooper, Jane. "Clifton, Lucille." The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamilton. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. 94-95.

Hudson, Theodore, and B.J. Bolden. "Clifton, (Thelma) Lucille." Contemporary Poets. 7^th ed. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Detroit: St. James P - Gale Group, 2001.

Lazer, Hank. "Blackness Blessed: The Writings of Lucille Clifton." Rev. of Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980. Southern Review 25 (1989): 760-70.

Madhubuti, Haki. "Lucille Clifton: Warm Water, Greased Legs, and Dangerous Poetry." Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Mari Evans. New York: Doubleday, 1984. 150-61.

Marbella, Jean. "Versed in Life." Baltimore Sun. 6 Nov. 1996. <Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.>

McCluskey, Audrey. "Tell the Good News: A View of the Works of Lucille Clifton." Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Mari Evans. New York: Doubleday, 1984. 139-49.

Miller, James A. "Lucille Clifton." <http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/clifton.html>

Quinn, Justin. "Assimilation." Rev. of Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton. <http://www.cprw.com/Quinn/assimilation.htm.>

Rushing, Andrea Benton. "Lucille Clifton: A Changing Voice for Changing Times." Coming to Light: American Women Poets in the Twentieth Century. Ed. Diane Middlebrook and Marilyn Yalom. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1985. 214-22.

Sandmann, Alexa. "Clifton, Lucille." Critical Survey of Poetry, Second Revised Edition. Ed. Philip Jason. Pasadena and Hackensack: Salem P, 2003. 8 vols. 2: 759-63.
 
 

[COMMENTARY ON THE ESSAY

        This essay illustrates an assignment requiring between 1600 and 2500 words in the essay body (the essay body is actually 1940 words) and requiring a minimum of five secondary sources (the paper uses eleven), at least one source from a book, one from a periodical, and one from the Internet. The assignment called for originality in the comprehensive analysis of a specific poem not discussed at all or not discussed in detail in any secondary sources; instead, students were to use comments in secondary sources about the poet's other poems to aid in the analysis of the poem, or to place the poem in the context of the author's other poems. The only secondary source that discussed the poem had two paragraphs: "[Summary]: 'these hips are big hips' says the woman narrator as she begins a 15 line celebration of her body and its power. With rhythmic progression, the poem evokes the forward movement of swaying hips -- hips that 'have never been enslaved,' that are 'mighty' and 'magic' and can 'put a spell on a man . . . .' [Commentary]: Clifton captures the inseparable reality and symbolism of the body. She uses her body to assert and express selfhood -- she accepts it as is, and turns it to her advantage. The body as sexual vehicle is acknowledged, but this body, this person is in charge." The sources were located through an online college catalog, the MLA Bibliography, internet search engines, and a library subscription full-text database of articles; the secondary sources represent books, periodical articles, and online sources. Copies or photocopies of all secondary sources were required to accompany the research paper, all materials placed in one file folder.

        The essay assignment is comprehended under approach 1 of "Selecting a Topic" in Ch. 32 of R&J: focus on a particular work. The essay itself uses all components in Chs. 13-21 and 23 of R&J to analyze the poem's subjects and themes.

        Paragraph 1 gives an overview of the author's poetry, as well as of the particular poem being analyzed, along with the main subjects of the poem. Paragraphs 2 through 4 focus on the poem's feminist subject, and also uses secondary sources to place the poem within the context of the author's poetry in general. Paragraph 5 focuses on the poem's African American theme, while paragraphs 6-8 discuss how the poem's subject and themes are embodied in the conflicts and contrasts embodied in the very form and formal components of the poem. As part of the essay's conclusion, paragraph 8 returns to placing the poem in subject and theme within the overall context of the author's poetry in general. ]