Front of the Class: Lessons & Laughs Learned from my Middle School ...

Over the course of her long career, Lucille Clifton received Pulitzer Prize nominations and a National Book Award. In 2007, she received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation. She is pictured above in 2000. ... 13 at age 73 from complications from cancer. Clifton cared deeply about American history and her own personal history. To her, they were connected. "One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected," Clifton said. ...