In Wild Blessings, Hilary Holladay offers the first full-length study of Clifton’s poetry, drawing on a broad knowledge of the American poetic tradition and African American poetry in particular. Holladay places Clifton’s poems in multiple contexts—personal, political, and literary—as she explicates major themes and analyzes specific works: Clifton’s poems about womanhood, a central concern throughout her career; her fertility poems, which are provocatively compared with Sylvia Plath’s poems on the same subject; her relation to the Black Arts Movement and to other black female poets, such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez; her biblical poems; her elegies; and her poignant family history, Generations, an extended prose poem. This illuminating book concludes with a wide-ranging interview with Clifton, in which she discusses her poetry and private life.

Readers encountering Lucille Clifton’s poems for the first time and those long familiar with her distinctive voice will benefit from Hilary Holladay’s perceptive and striking insights into the work of a leading American poet.