Good Woman

Ms. Clifton died on February 13, 2010, on the fifty-first anniversary of her mother’s death.

She was appointed Maryland’s Poet Laureate in 1974 and remained in that post for eleven years.

From 1969 to 1974 her poems and essays appeared in popular publications of the time, including The Negro Digest and Ms. magazine.

Her first book of poetry, Good Times, was published in 1969, shortly after her work had been introduced to Langston Hughes by her close friend Ishmael Reed.

She was also the author of eighteen children’s books, and in 1984 received the Coretta Scott King Award from the American Library Association for her book Everett Anderson’s Good-bye.

In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry—Good Woman and Next—chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year.

the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library in 1996, served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1999 to 2005, and was elected a fellow in Literature of

Ms. Clifton received many additional honors throughout her career, beginning with the Discovery Award from the New York YW/YMHA Poetry Center in 1969 for her first volume Good Times, and including a 1976 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for the television special “Free to Be You and Me,” a Lannan Literary Award in 1994, and the Robert Frost Medal in 2010.

She won the National Book Award for Poetry, and was the first Black female recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.