"the message of crazy horse"

[Diane Merkel]

Lucille Clifton First Black Woman To Win Lilly Poetry Prize

Black poet Lucille Clifton has won the 2007 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, one of the most prestigious honors awarded American poets.

In making the $100,000 award, the judges cited Clifton’s “looming humaneness” and “moral quality.”

“Clifton has added enormously to the representation of the African-American experience in poetry and has been a kind of historical consciousness for her people and a public consciousness for us all,” the judges said.

Clifton, 71, is the first black woman to win the Lilly Prize, which was established in 1986 and is presented annually by the Poetry Foundation. Previous winners include such well-known poets as Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Yusef Komunyakaa, and last year’s winner, Richard Wilbur. . . .

“Mulberry Fields,” which Clifton identified as a good poem to start with, is available on the Web site of the Poetry Foundation. Another personal favorite of hers, “the message of crazy horse” is also available there. Crazy Horse was the war chief and visionary leader of the American Indian Lakota who played a major role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in which the 7th U.S. Cavalry under General Custer was killed in 1876. “I’m very fond of he who was called Crazy Horse,” Clifton said.

Article: usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2007&m=May&x=200705101549401CJsamohT0.2856256

Here's her poem "the message of crazy horse" from www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176010

the message of crazy horse
by Lucille Clifton


i would sit in the center of the world,
the Black Hills hooped around me and
dream of my dancing horse. my wife


was Black Shawl who gave me the daughter
i called They Are Afraid Of Her.
i was afraid of nothing


except Black Buffalo Woman.
my love for her i wore
instead of feathers. i did not dance


i dreamed. i am dreaming now
across the worlds. my medicine is strong.
my medicine is strong in the Black basket
of these fingers. i come again through this


Black Buffalo woman. hear me;
the hoop of the world is breaking.
fire burns in the four directions.
the dreamers are running away from the hills.
i have seen it. i am crazy horse.