Generations

A Memoir

By: Lucille Clifton

Narrated by: Sidney Clifton

Buffalo. A father's funeral. Memory. And Lucille Clifton merges her formidable weapons of poetry with the power of her prose, giving us a memoir of stark and profound beauty. Her story focuses on the lives of Caroline, "born among the Dahomey people in 1822", who walked North from New Orleans to Virginia in 1830 when she was eight years old; Lucy, the first Black woman to be hanged in Virginia; and Gene, born with a withered arm, the son of a Yankee carpetbagger and the author's grandmother.

Lucille Clifton tells us about the death of her father and mother and all that life and love and triumph that came before and remains even now. "I look at my husband," writes Ms. Clifton, "and our six children and I feel the Dahomey women gathering in my bones."

Ms. Clifton's poetry has been called "lean, hard, and graceful". But there are no accurate adjectives to describe her prose. Let's just say perfect.

©1976 The Estate of Lucille T. Clifton (P)2017 The Estate of Lucille T. Clifton

Ms. Clifton’s clear and powerful voice.

Wonderful. Beautifully written and narrated. Wish it had been longer. Interested in every word.
The narration and the writing feel fused.

Great voice

Truly interesting and deeply engaging account of one the foremost African American poets of the age.