See, her hips need space to move around in. Never fear, Shmoop is here. It is a poem that urges women to take ownership of their bodies—to love themselves, just as they are. She wasn’t about to let anyone tell her that her how her body was supposed to look like, because her hips are free hips. She says everything as fact—and rightfully so. She didn’t care about measuring herself by anyone else’s specifications—and why would she, when she had her own yardstick to measure herself against. Instant mood and confidence boost!
Why the hips? Don’t let society impose its standards on your person. The poet knows what she wants to say and says it directly to her audience. And if said works could be both empowering and entertaining, then all the better. For example, in Phenomenal Woman, Maya Angelou enumerated and exalted in the reach of her arms, the span of her hips, the bend of her hair, and even the curl of her hips.
There's a fabulous scene at the end of the movie when all of the women in a sweatshop strip down to their bras and flaunt their curves.... Just imagine Aretha Franklin belting out "Respect" in the background as this poem is read aloud. /these hips …
Just like Phenomenal Woman, Homage to My Hips is a poem that’s built to be said out loud in a tone oozing with sass, good humor, confidence, and cocksure conviction. For over a decade, my ‘feel-good poem’ has been Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman.
Like Aretha, this poem sounds brassy, strong, and tough – and it's oh-so-confident in its own... Poetry is chock-full of odes and homages and songs of praise to just about object under the sun. During that period, there was hardly any room for women with big, bold hips in fashion magazines. These are some sexy, sexy hips. Buck the body trends, and more importantly, create your own definition of who you are as a woman. She knew perfectly well that her big hips were mighty and magical hips, powerful hips that have put a spell on a man and spin him like a top. And to be fair, the same could be said about Lucille Clifton’s big hips. The lines do not follow a specific rhyme scheme or metrical pattern, a kind of wiring known as free verse. Remember that America Ferrera movie, Real Women Have Curves? If Clifton’s point was to urge women to celebrate their bodies as a way of celebrating their entire selves—for, really, try as we may to separate the physical from the spiritual/mental, our bodies are the tangible representations of our inner selves—why stop with that one bit? It begs the question, (for this reader, at least), of Why the hips? We don't get any specific references to sex, but don't let that fool you. The hips are the center of a woman’s sexuality. There's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," for starters. That, and of course, big hips (no matter their actual size) are fabulous and beautiful hips. She's confident, articulate, and honest with herself.
Personally, I think vagina works just fine, but potatoes, po-tah-tos.
In a world so determined to dictate its standards onto one’s person, it’s always refreshing to find literary works—essays, poems, short stories, and novels—that encourage the celebration of one’s individuality. She seems all into herself, more specifically, her hips. It’s a piece that positively thrums with joy. Nope.
For this poem, the latter is obviously more pertinent.
In doing so, Angelou had painted a complete portrait of a woman. ‘ homage to my hips’ by Lucille Clifton is a fifteen line poem that is contained within a single stanza of text.
Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Now, even in 1980, when the poem was published in Clifton’s award-winning book of poems, Two-Headed Woman, big hips weren’t exactly de rigueur. In fact, the body ideal during this period had just begun shifting from the soft and slight curves of the 1970s dancing queens to the leggy and athletic Amazonian proportions of the 1980s supermodels.
Although this poem does not contain consistent rhymes or … Just watch how Lucille Clifton delivers it, and tell me that you didn’t crack at least one smile throughout her reading. See, Lucille Clifton's language is straight shooting. As mentioned in her introduction, Clifton is renowned for alluding to both African American and women’s resilience to oppression both socially and politically. Remember all of those positive self-esteem workshops that your elementary school guidance counselors had to make girls feel strong and powerful and comfortable in their own skins? Oh, and "Ode to a Nightingale." It’s because much of a woman’s identity in history is actually tied to her hips. In "Homage to My Hips", Lucille Clifton creates some kind of imagery pertaining to her hips. Her hips don’t fit into little petty places. And I’d like to believe that the poem, more than celebrating a woman’s form, whatever that form or shape may take, is also a way of urging women to take charge of their sexuality and their identity. See, I think I’ve found the perfect accompanying piece to Phenomenal Woman, and that’s Homage to My Hips by Lucille Clifton. /they do what they want to do.
Why else would our ancestors be so obsessed with child-bearing hips? It’s a piece that positively thrums with joy. And for a long time, what those hips could produce—a child!—was also seen as the largest measure of her worth and her identity. Clifton starts the poem with the simple but effective declaration: these hips are big hips. Why not talk about breasts, waists, hands, and so on and so forth? She leaves no room for argument or even the possibility of discussion.
You could imagine this phenomenal woman and slip into her shoes easily. But now that my current journal is down to its final pages, I’m thinking that for my next one, Maya Angelou’s famous poem will have to learn to share the spotlight. But that didn’t really matter to Clifton. All throughout this poem, Lucille Clifton very clearly illustrates a strong idea of symbolism regarding her “hips”. Check out our... None of that counting syllables or beating out rhythms against your desk. Now, at first glance, the poem itself appears to be very straightforward. This is the woman that all women dream of becoming. That way, if I was having a lousy day and needed a quick pick-me-up, all I had to do was reach into my bag and give the piece a swift read. Big hips and all. Technical analysis of homage to my hips literary devices and the technique of Lucille Clifton Featured Poem: Homage to My Hips by Lucille Clifton, Follow The Quarter-Life Experiment on WordPress.com, Philosophy 101: The Six Branches of Philosophy, Featured Poem: Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda, Featured Poem: Bluebird by Charles Bukowski, Featured Poem: “Hope” is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson, Featured Poem: Homage to My Hips by Lucille Clifton, Thoughts on “Economy” by Henry David Thoreau, Featured Poem: The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop, Memento Homo: Finding Meaning in Your Mortality. And I guess that’s what makes Homage to My Hips so amazing—and maybe that’s also the answer to my previous question.
Now, it’s interesting to note how Clifton had zeroed in and written an homage about a very specific body part. So straightforward, in fact, that Clifton cannot be bothered with capitalizations and multitudes of metaphors, flowery language and line breaks that are pregnant with meaning. Just like Phenomenal Woman, Homage to My Hips is a poem that’s built to be said out loud in a tone oozing with sass, good humor, confidence, and cocksure conviction. Much like Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman, Homage to My Hips is a celebration of womanhood. Where do we sign up? Those are hips that were never enslaved by something as petty as convention or the standards of fashion. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Who better to know the effects of one’s body than its wearer?
Instead, create, and more importantly, live your own story. She makes it a point to convey that her hips are strong or powerful by the lines "they go where they want to go. Just watch how Lucille Clifton delivers it, and tell me that you didn’t crack at least one smile throughout her reading. Maybe I’m over-reading or overreaching here, but the way I see it is that the hips are home to what a lot of writers like to refer to as the woman’s core. Clifton takes tho... A feel-good message conveyed in short, simple language? It’s a poem that I like to write down in all my journals. Any woman could identify with, wear, and sashay in those hips.
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