homage to my hips
these hips are big hips
they need space to move around in.
they don't fit into little places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Lucille Clifton
Thank you Carol Siegel for bringing this poem to me.
Carol found this in one of Lucille Clifton's books, not sure which one.
Here is something about Lucille Clifton from a web site:
Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, in 1936. Her nine books of poetry include The Terrible Stories (BOA Editions, 1995), which was nominated for the National Book Award; The Book of Light (1993); Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 (1991); Next: New Poems (1987); Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (1987), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; Two-Headed Woman(1980), also a Pulitzer Prize nominee and winner of the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize; An Ordinary Woman (1974); Good News About the Earth (1972); and Good Times (1969). She has also written Generations: A Memoir (1976) and more than sixteen books for children. Her honors include an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a Lannan Literary Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the YM-YWHA Poetry Center Discovery Award. She has served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland and is currently Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland.