SOURCE: Balbo, Ned. Review of Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000, by Lucille Clifton. Antioch Review 59, no. 3 (summer 2001): 637-38.

In the following review of Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000, Balbo calls Clifton “an American artist of the highest order” and praises her “generous and unflinching” vision.

Winner of the National Book Award in poetry, former Maryland Poet Laureate Clifton here [in Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000] confirms her place as an American artist of the highest order. The book selects from four previous collections, adding to this glance at twelve years' achievement 19 new poems that examine family, grief, hope, and heritage with the author's signature concision and intelligence. Clifton's poems are accessible yet subtle: in few words precisely chosen, she explores the human capacity for perseverance and renewal that balances our frailties of body and spirit. In “dialysis,” Clifton feels...