Lucille Clifton's pride in being black and in being a woman helps her transform difficult circumstances into a qualified affirmation about the black urban world she portrays. She perceives in her own African heritage models for courage and endurance that may find their counterparts in contemporary inner-city blacks. The first of her three books of poetry, Good Times (1969), offers a panorama of ghetto life emphasizing the adversities found in such a setting. Good News About the Earth (1972) suggests that at long last the oppressive burdens of American blacks may be lifted, largely because of black men and women who rise to the level of heroes. Clifton's third book, An Ordinary Woman (1974), acknowledges the diminution of her expectations for a promised better life through social change. In this book the writer tends instead to focus upon questions of her own identity as a woman and a poet. The thematic...