Early Uncollected Poems / Lucille Clifton / 1965-1969
I read this collecting to Anushka after a wounding day where an immigration officer grilled me for 1.5 hours during Anushka's green card interview. It succeeded in calming us, making us laugh and hum and ponder in the Indiana gray. It's stunning how good these poems are when she hadn't even truly began her literary career yet. Better than most bonafides tbh. There's an especially good nursery rhymes here for young girls. 4/5