Nurturing the Compassionate Community

The Office of the President presents “Nurturing the Compassionate Community: An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton” on Monday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom. The event, co-sponsored by the VOICES Reading Series, will feature poetry readings and reflections to honor St. Mary’s College’s former Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Lucille Clifton. Click here to register for this webinar. After registering you will receive a comfirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Lucille Clifton was one of the most distinguished, decorated and beloved poets of her time. She won the National Book Award for Poetry and was the first Black recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Her honors and awards give testament to the universality of her unique and resonant voice. In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry – “Good Woman” and “Next” – chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. In 1996, she was named a Literary Lion of New York Public Library. She also served as chancellor of the Academy of American Poetry and was elected a fellow in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Lucille Clifton Legacy Award
Leah Naomi Green
	Leah Naomi Green is the author of “The More Extravagant Feast" (Graywolf Press, 2020), which was selected by Li-Young Lee for the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. She teaches English and Environmental Studies at Washington and Lee University and lives in the mountains of Virginia where she, her partner, and their daughters homestead and grow food. Green’s chapbook, “The Ones We Have,” received the 2012 Flying Trout Chapbook prize. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Paris Review, Tin House, The Southern Review, Ecotone, Shenandoah, and Pleiades.
Certificate of Appreciation
Li-Young Lee
	Li-Young Lee is the author of "The Undressing" (W. W. Norton, 2018); "Behind My Eyes" (W. W. Norton, 2008); "Book of My Nights" (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; "The City in Which I Love You" (BOA Editions, 1990), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and "Rose" (BOA Editions, 1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. He has been the recipient of a Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, the I. B. Lavan Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship.
	Click here to view featured books from our Lucille Clifton collection, including The Undressing and The More Extravagant Feast.