homage to my hips
Lucille Clifton’s ‘‘homage to my hips’’ first
appeared in the book Two-Headed Woman
(1980), a collection of poems written between
1960 and 1980. Although Clifton was publishing
both poetry and children’s books during this
period, Two-Headed Woman, nominated for
the Pulitzer Prize, established her as a major
American poet. Clifton calls the opening section
‘‘Homage to Mine’’ and includes several ‘‘hom-
age’’ poems; ‘‘homage to my hair’’ is the poem
that immediately precedes ‘‘homage to my hips.’’
In both cases, the poet is celebrating a part of her
body that has traditionally been demeaned.
In ‘‘homage to my hips,’’ Clifton provides a
sometimes playful (but always mighty) expres-
sion of African American womanhood. In just
seventy-eight words, she frees herself from both
the dominance of Caucasian ideals of beauty and
from masculine notions of femininity. The poem
has been widely anthologized in collections such
asTwentieth-Century American Poetry(1994),
and it is also available in Clifton’s important
collectionGood Woman: Poems and a Memoir,
1969–1980(1987).
Author Biography
Lucille Clifton was born Thelma Lucille Sayles
in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her
parents were Samuel and Thelma Moore Sayles.
113LUCILLE CLIFTON
1980