Lucille Clifton (2003)

In 1969, Lucille Clifton’s first book of poems Good Times was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. Several of her poems are found in The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1970 (1970), an anthology Langston Hughes put together before his death in 1967. Hughes referred to Clifton as an important new voice in American poetry and she certainly lived up to that and beyond. By the time of Lucille Clifton’s passing in 2010, after a battle with cancer, the author had published more than 25 books, including many written for children.