(I would reproduce the lines here, but I don’t think I could do accurate justice to their format. The delicate possible interpretations of the third and fourth stanzas of “Lumpectomy Eve” would be ruined by traditional spacing and commas. Poems like “Lumpectomy Eve” showcase this ambiguous lack of formal punctuation but, it could be argued that Clifton replaces this formal punctuation with atypical spacing, line breaks, and indentation. The meaning of a line can be completely reconstructed by the assumption of her implied commas or periods. Her use of line breaks, indentation, and a straight-forward, story-telling tone allows for plenty of ambiguity in phrases that crave punctuation. Lucille Clifton, the author of Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 19882000 (BOA Editions, 2000), which won the National Book Award, was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. Lucille Clifton’s miserly use of punctuation throughout Blessing the Boats becomes much more meaningful to the audience, not just as devices to make the poems “correct,” but to allow or dispel ambiguity. This poem is part of 'September Suite' by Lucille Clifton, 2001. I never thought that a general lack of punctuation would make the grammar-fueled part of my brain crave it this much.
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