Themes
Cultural Notions of Beauty
In ‘‘homage to my hips,’’ Clifton makes a state-
ment about culturally held notions of beauty.
For decades, majority American culture has
prized slender hips and overall thinness. Top
models such as Twiggy, from the 1960s, and
more recently Kate Moss have provided the
iconic waif-like look found on the covers of
fashion magazines. The bodies of these models
resemble that of a young boy rather than that of
a fully developed woman. In addition, the
excessively thin women who grace the covers
of women’s magazines typically have little in
common with the women who read the
magazines.
Clifton asserts in her poem that her large
hips have much more power than do small
hips. By extension, she calls for women to free
themselves from the self-limiting notions of
beauty foisted upon them by media and culture.
Rather than worrying about dieting and trying
to make her body conform to some impossible,
externally imposed idea about beauty, she cele-
brates her own large hips, equating their large-
ness with the largeness of the life she wants to
live. Moreover, she seems to be saying that her
choice to have large hips frees her from all limi-
tations. Culture enslaves women by requiring
that they look a particular way in order to be
deemed attractive; Clifton, on the other hand,
asserts that her hips have always been free. As
such, they belong to no one but herself.TOPICS FOR
FURTHER
STUDY In addition to ‘‘homage to my hips,’’ Clifton
wrote several other poems about her body
including ‘‘homage to my hair,’’ ‘‘i was born
with twelve fingers,’’ and ‘‘what the mirror
said.’’ Read a wide selection of these poems,
then write several poems to various parts of
your own body. What would you like to
celebrate? Why? How is your celebration of
your own body different from or similar to
commonly held cultural views? Write a brief
essay addressing these questions.
Clifton counted among her friends some of
the most important writers of the black arts
movement. Research the movement, and
find representative pieces of art, music, and
literature. Using what you learn and collect,
develop a multimedia presentation on the
black arts movement and present it to your
class.
Gwendolyn Brooks, a close friend of Clifton
and the first African American to win a
Pulitzer Prize, wrote a very famous poem
called ‘‘the mother.’’ This poem is often
compared and contrasted with Clifton’s‘‘the lost baby poem.’’ Read both poems
carefully, along with interviews with both
writers, then write an essay comparing and
contrasting the position the two poems seem
to take on the subject of abortion.
The poet Sharon Olds published a volume of
poems about her father calledThe Fatherin- Likewise, one of Sylvia Plath’s most
famous poems, ‘‘Daddy,’’ is about the poet’s
relationship with her father. Read these
poems along with Clifton’s many poems
that concern her father and write an essay
comparing and contrasting the poets’ views
of fatherhood.
Ideals of feminine beauty change across time
and across culture. Collect copies of paint-
ings and photographs of women from a wide
variety of time periods and countries. Can
you make a list of what features were con-
sidered beautiful in each time period and in
each culture? Make a collage of these images
and write a report about the changing per-
ceptions of feminine beauty.
homage to my hips