American Literature / Unit 17 AML 1626 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Lucille Clifton's Short Line
Captions available
The idea
Clifton was discovered by Langston Hughes, published Good Times in nineteen sixty-nine, and wrote brief, incisive poems, most under twenty lines, in plain diction with no capitalization or punctuation. The anchor says the choice forces a reader to look deeper into her words.
In practice
Small poems with large interiors.
Where people slip
The missing punctuation is a deliberate method.
Your place on the trail
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