Gabrielle Saenz Poetry of class, race, and the urban world, the poetry of Etheridge Knight and Lucille Clifton carries with it importance and values learned today. Everyone is different in this world. People are black, white, Spanish and so on. People have different cultures and traditions and people feel different types of ways about everything. Within Clifton and Knight’s poetry of class, race and the urban world, we are receiving an insight of the African American culture. We learn of the art of toast, the African American heritage, feminist themes and enslavement. The important values I see here is one of many and they are found within they’re poems which is why I do believe that Knight and Clifton’s poetry carry the importance for which Groddeck’s position does not account. Lucille Clifton’s poem, “Homage to My Hips”, she writes (“these hips are free hips. They don’t like to be held back. these hips never been enslaved, they go where they want to go. They do what they want to do.” Lucille Clifton). I believe she is speaking up for the African American women basically saying ‘before you think I am going to be your slave I am telling you that I am a women of respect and might and will not tolerate to be enslaved or held back. Reading this poem shows women the value of themselves and shows that you have a choice, to not be enslaved and to do be mighty and free.
Etheridge Knight’s poem, “A Poem For Myself”, he writes (“I was born in Mississippi; I walked barefoot thru the mud. Born black in Mississippi, Walked barefoot thru the mud. But, when I reached the age of twelve I left that place for good.” Etheridge Knight). What I take from this is that he is a black boy born in Mississippi and barefoot walking through the mud meaning he comes from a place where he sees him wanting more for himself then what little he has in his life now. In the poem he heads north to Detroit then Chicago then New York City. He felt he had to get out of Mississippi, to be free of this poor life where his daddy chopped cotton, for him to be