{"product_id":"voices-poems-1","title":"Voices","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eVoices\u003c\/em\u003e, National Book Award-winner Lucille Clifton continues her celebrated aesthetic of writing compact poems that reveal powerful, sometimes disturbing truths. These include poems written for and about her mother and father, aunts, uncles and nephews, and extended family. Spare muscular language combine with copious silences to create the trademark Clifton poem – one is which the speaker always understands that the joy, grief and loss others have experienced stands in direct relationship with her own. One of Clifton's aesthetic strengths is her ability to write inventive dramatic monologues. Voices includes several dramatic monologues spoken by animals. Additionally, the food products Aunt Jemima syrup and Cream of Wheat get their say. Here is Cream of Wheat's take on who he truly might be, as he imagines himself, Jemima and Uncle Ben (from Uncle Ben's Rice) sharing a late night stroll through the supermarket aisles:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cstrong\u003ecream of wheat\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e sometimes at night\u003cbr\u003e we stroll the market aisles\u003cbr\u003e ben and jemima and me     they\u003cbr\u003e walk in front     remembering this and that\u003cbr\u003e i lag behind\u003cbr\u003e trying to remove my chef's cap\u003cbr\u003e wondering about what ever pictured me\u003cbr\u003e then left me personless\u003cbr\u003e Rastus\u003cbr\u003e i read in an old paper\u003cbr\u003e i was called rastus\u003cbr\u003e but no mother ever\u003cbr\u003e gave that to her son     toward dawn\u003cbr\u003e we return to our shelves\u003cbr\u003e our boxes     ben and jemima and me\u003cbr\u003e we pose and smile     i simmer     what \u003cbr\u003e is my name  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"National Book Award-winner Clifton has long enjoyed national acclaim for her careful, colloquial, compact renditions of African-American voices...and these poems look even further back, to the origin of writing. Clifton retains an undeniable sincerity, an openness to her own emotions, and a rare warmth.\"--Publishers Weekly \"Lucille's unique ability to not only see but to capture emotional dichotomies of issues surrounding issues and braid them like challah is what makes her one of the most frequently taught and famous poets living in the world today.\"--Rattle \"An eloquence that is akin to justice, that arises out of voicelessness, that tests but respects the limits of language, and yields to acknowledge the final dominion of silence, is the hallmark of Clifton’s work, now honed to its essential truth-speaking power: 'Sometimes we hear them in our dreams\/ rattling their skulls, clicking\/ their bony fingers\/ they have heard me beseeching\/…but who can distinguish one human voice\/ amid such choruses\/ of desire?'\"–The Buffalo News   BOA is honored to present this new collection by one of America's most distinguished and beloved poets, Lucille Clifton.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e © BOA Editions, Ltd 2008\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Available editions: \u003cbr\u003e --------------------------------------------------------------------------------\u003cbr\u003e Cloth ISBN: 978-1-934414-11-8\u003cbr\u003e Price: $22.95\u003cbr\u003e Publishing Date: September 2008\u003cbr\u003e Paperback ISBN: 978-1-934414-12-5\u003cbr\u003e Price: $16.00\u003cbr\u003e Publishing Date: September 2008\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e   \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":9832407877,"sku":"9781934414125","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/VOICES.jpg?v=1527683775","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/voices-poems-1","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}