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Teaching Tips: won't you celebrate with me, by Lucille Clifton
- Explore the Biblical story of the exile in Babylon and the way that writers and singers in the African diaspora have drawn on that story. Many famous reggae singers have used this allusion, including Jimmy Cliff ("Rivers of Babylon") and Bob Marley ("Babylon System").
- Read the start of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." How might Clifton's poem be responding to it?
- What are some of the turning points in this sonnet, and some of the ways it can be divided into sections? Have students look for changes in idea, in punctuation, or in diction. How would the poem be different if these sections were presented in a different order? Also, how does each section contribute to the whole of the poem?
- How does that fact that the sonnet is written in free verse—without regular rhyme or meter—connect to the content of the poem? Why might Clifton have thought that this hybrid form, part formal or traditional and part free, was appropriate for a poem about this subject?
- Drawing from Clifton's example, how might the making of a poem be similar to the making of a self?