homage to my hips
BY LUCILLE CLIFTON
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
This poem is a rebellion less against the author but rather the expectations imposed on her. This poem was written in 1987, when gender inequalities were much worse than they are today. The author is voicing her displeasure with the unfair standards for women in the world of 1987, probably more specifically the way women are typically expected to dress. This poem is a feminist celebration of the female body according to the book which sounds pretty accurate to me since all she talks about is how she's thick. This topic also probably would have left most men reading the poem rather taken aback as this was not something women really ever talked about in public those days. She is also rebelling against the standards by saying she is the one who is controlling men, albeit with her body and to me somewhat degrading herself. Lucille Clifton was assumedly tired of the unfair expectations placed on her by a society she did not really have a say in, and she somewhat brings to light a truth I am sure no man would have really wanted to admit at the time.
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