won’t you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that every day
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
A call to celebrate, yes, that of a life—many lives—who, “born in babylon,” wasn’t expected, desired or encouraged to survive. Defiant, yes; a praise-song; a kiss or slap to the face; the sound of sucking teeth. But it is also an instructive; schematic; a blueprint on how to live. Though the poem’s speaker admits to having for herself no example, the poem is structured (fourteen lines; sonnetlike; world of its own) to become itself that absent model. We, readers, are therefore witnesses to a kind of experiment: the task of “ma[king] it up,” making our own models, which is ultimately the task of self-discovery. Understandably, this is a project made more difficult (and thefore more necessary) for those who exist in liminal spaces: “nonwhite and woman;” nonChristian and American; or even queer and of color.
Thus, with a mind to answer Clifton’s invitation to celebrate, CAYENNE begins a new project aptly named “CELEBRATION SERIES.” This series will feature work by queer poets of color; work that, to them, expresses (whether blatantly or not) what it means to live as a queer person of color: that is, to survive within that space crossed between marginalized sexualities, races and (possibly) genders/gender presentations. Poems featured under the “CELEBRATION SERIES” will be previously published material so as to garner more attention to this important work as well as to create a map of what already exists. Should you be interested in participating in this project, please click here. Be sure to subscribe to CAYENNE in order to receive emails when new posts, including the CELEBRATION SERIES, are up!
Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me” from Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, 1993).
