Despite her renown, the poet Lucille Clifton’s spiritual practice is a little-known part of her literary legacy. Clifton was a self-described “two-headed woman,” — a traditional African American term used to characterize women gifted with access to the spirit world. As such, Clifton chronicled the transit of spirits through her home, her body and her pen.
Marina Magloire will detail her scholarly work with Clifton’s spirit communications. This archive boasts past life regressions, treatises on Black astrology, histories of Atlantis penned in unbroken cursive, and interviews with celebrity spirits. In the midst of October’s so-called spooky season, Magloire will point to the ways Clifton’s interlocution with the spirits anticipated global geopolitical events and opened new theoretic possibilities for Black feminism.
Marina Magloire is an assistant professor of English at the University of Miami where she specializes in African American and diasporic literature. Her scholarly work has appeared in Small Axe, Meridians, and Palimpsest. Her public-facing work can be found in the Paris Review, Harper’s Bazaar and The Nation, among others. Her book "We Pursue Our Magic: A Spiritual History of Black Feminism" is forthcoming from UNC Press.
Please join us in Higley Hall Auditorium on Friday, October 14, at 4:15 p.m.