Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000.

Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton BOA Editions, Ltd., April 2000, $15.00, ISBN 1-880-23888-8

For the uninitiated reader, who still may mistake spare lines of poetry for a lack of content, I highly recommend that they delve into this tight collection by award-winning master poet, Lucille Clifton. Long time Clifton fans will appreciate the choices the poet has made regarding the juxtaposition of new work with selections from her four previous collections. The volume begins with nineteen new works depicting what Clifton articulates as the anxiousness of our times.

The success of the collection lies in Clifton's focused purpose, breaking urgent world issues down into microcosms of the lives of its citizens, and of the poet herself. The poems, though taken from a twelve-year span, chart the journey of a life. Clifton's bout with cancer and an aging, though undiminished feminine power share equal weight with James Byrd's voice in "jasper, texas 1998." Clifton is a seeker who speaks in the unadorned tongue of truth- telling. It is this very quality that has made her a beloved poet of the people.

Delving into the frankly spiritual is another Clifton hallmark. Yet this is not a site for easy redemption. When she steps into the bodies of biblical figures from Lazarus to Mary, she strives to reinscribe their humanity and apply the three-dimensional result to a modern people in need of grace.

At the crux of Clifton's work is a desire to heal. She does this by eliding the boundaries between a splintered world, her body's geography and a wounded people. The result is as haunting as a childhood smell that can only be reencountered by traveling home. Blessing the Boats is a gracious invitation to that journey.

Bethany White is a English Ph.D. student and Doctoral Fellow at the University of Kentucky. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals and anthologies.