A.
1. Clifton, Lucille. "Homage to my hips." An Introduction to Poetry. Ed. 2. New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 2007. 439. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/homage-to-my-hips/
2. Lucille Clifton's poem "Homage to my hips" was written in 1991. The poem describes a woman's sense of pride for her body, more particularly her hips, which she believes are her guide in life. As an African-American woman, she is now free, and her body can go where it pleases. Her hips are a metaphor for her forward movement in life.
3. This poem caught my interest in a number of ways. Clifton's way of bringing in her African-American heritage, without putting it into words is incredible. I enjoyed reading this because one of the things the poem does is celebrate a full figured woman, not a skinny, bony woman who may be anorexic. The poem goes deeper than the image of the body though. Clifton makes the reader realize that not just her, but all African-Americans are now free and proud to live as they wish. One may read this poem and automatically assume it is about hips. On the surface it is, but underneath it is all about the human mind.
4. I chose to compare Clifton's "Homage to my hips" with Thomas Hardy's "The Ruined Maid". Both Clifton and Hardy write about their character's new position in life. The woman in "Homage to my hips" is now happy and glowing because she feels her body and mind can wander wherever. The woman in "The Ruined Maid" is a prostitute. Who knows if Clifton's character is a prostitute as well? We do not know. Both of the women in the poem's are proud of their new up comings, and are showing them off to the world.
1 comment:
I agree with your comparision of Lucille Clifton's "Homage to my hips" and Thomas Hardy's "The Ruined Maid". I do believe that both women are changed and proud of who they are and they are not afraid to flaunt it to the world (even though one is a prostitute). I read Clifton's poem in our Introduction to Poetry book, and I compared it with Eavan Boland's poem "Anorexic"; now, this poem counteracts with Clifton and Hardy's poems because instead of being pleased with her life and her body, the speaker in this poem, who is also changing, but changing for the worse, is starving and believes that eating something will be a sin of greed and she'll want more. However, in vivid details, this poem describes vomiting after eating, "... till I renounced milk and honey and the taste of lunch." Therefore, the speaker does eat, at least a little bit. So, I think "Bulimic" would be a more accurate title for this particular poem.
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