The Terrible Stories

The Terrible Stories is a compilation of poems by Lucille Clifton. The book is broken up into chapters, with each chapter composed of multiple poems about a specific topic or theme. For example, her first chapter is titled "A Dream of Foxes." The series of short poems are all about a fox that the speaker sees around her house. She is lonely, and almost feels a pity for the fox although she knows their sometime fierce nature. Still, the speaker does not acknowledge the company of the fox, for she desires that from a human, more or less, a man. There is an almost sexual tension of love and longing in the speaker's tone. Overall,this first chapter has struck my interest with its creativity and depth, and I look forward to the rest of the anthology.