Samuel Louis Sayles, Sr.
The poetry of Lucille Clifton is well-noted for its robust population of members of the poet’s family. Samuel Sayles, Sr. appears extensively in her verse, but never as Samuel. He is the title character in poems like “forgiving my father,” “my lost father,” and “my father hasn’t come back.” He is also the main character of “cigarettes,” who is remembered for burning every member of the family with the ash that fell from his pack of smokes.
Thelma Sayles
Thelma was the second wife of Samuel. Her predecessor died at the tender age of twenty-one, after the poet’s half-sister Josephine had already been born. Thelma is given the honor of being the titular figure of certain poems such as “to Thelma who worried because I couldn’t cook” and the elegy written upon her death at age forty-four, “the death of thelma sayles.” In “morning mirror” Thelma is mentioned by name and characterized as possessing just one single strength: Love.
Fred Clifton
Although not mentioned by name within the body of the poem, “the kind of man he is” is dedicated to the poet’s husband, Fred. Like most other significant members of her family, however, his name does pop up in the titles of “the message of fred clifton” and “the death of fred clifton.” Generally speaking, Fred appears more frequently in dedications than in the poems themselves, making him into something similar to being the poet’s muse who inspires verse about a broader range of topics than himself.
Lucille Clifton
Clifton appears as the speaker in a number of poems and in doing so adopts the conventional use of the first-person “I” to identify herself as the voice of the poem. More notably, she also makes an appearance as the title character referred to in the third person as “lucy one-eye.” In this work, the speaker of the verse is describing a persona adopted by the writer of the poem. So, it is as this Lucy One-Eye character that readers learn Lucille Clifton can’t cook or clean, sees the world sideways, and is a tenacious bulldog who never gives up trying even if every attempt ends in failure.
