LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936-2010)

Buffalo native Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), author of more than 20 books who won the National Book Award in 2001 for her collection Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, and in 2007 became the first African-American woman to be awarded one of the literary world’s highest honors, the Ruth Lilly Prize for lifetimeachievement by the Poetry Foundation, passed away February 13th in Columbia, Md., after a brief illness. She was 73. For more information visit http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/955670.html