Women Empowerment Concept in Afro-American poetry: A Study in Lucille Clifton's Selected poems

Abstract

This research aims at investigating an important concept in the poetry of contemporary Afro-American women poets, that is of Black Woman empowerment. The research offers a brief exploration of this concept, defining it and showing the reasons behind its appearances. Then, the research goes into examining this concept in Lucille Clifton’s selected poems. The paper sheds light on the multiple poetic strategies on which Clifton depends to stir the concept of Black women empowerment in her poems. Most prominent of these empowering strategies are: showing the physical bodily features of Afro-American women as an assertion of their own identity, exposing the strength and endurance of Black women via reviving models of strong Black women in myths and history , as well as demonstrating the super women role of Black mothers and their ability to continue living even in the midst of trails