Preview

Book Review: Homage to My Hips

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
548 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Book Review: Homage to My Hips
The theme of Lucille Clifton’s “Homage to my hips” concentrates on a proud, strong, and powerful woman who is absolutely in love with her hips. Clifton’s tone throughout the poem focuses highly on her big hips. Not once does the she speak negatively about them. She feels absolutely wonderful about her big hips, making her feel so confident and full-bodied all at the same time. She gives off many reasons to why her hips make her modest, but full of pride. The beginning of ’Homage to my hips” illustrates the confidence that the speaker has about her hips. “These hips are big hips” (1) demonstrate how the speaker is proud of her big hips and does not mind what others may think about her hips. I feel like the speaker would be disappointed if she had little hips. The speaker knows that her hips are big and they need additional room when she explains “they need space to/move around in” (2/3). The speaker knows her hips do not fit into little places. The speaker of “Homage to my hips” is definitely not ashamed of her considerably large hips. After the speaker talks about her proud qualities as it pertains to her hips she moves on to speak about why her hips make her strong. In the lines “these hips/are free hips (5-6) the speaker demonstrates that her hips do what they want to do. Her wide hips have no limitations. “These hips have never been enslaved” (7) shows the speaker has never been controlled and she can uphold her freedom by herself. The speaker shows her strong side by stating “they go where they want to go/they do what they want to do” (8-9). The big hips do not make her feel weak. Finally Clifton speaks about how her hips make her powerful. I think that when the speaker states that “these hips are mighty hips/these hips are magic hips” (11-12) would give a sense that she can get certain things from a man or give a man a certain feeling. Also, the magic of the hips could attract a lover perhaps. “I have known them/to put a spell on a man and/spin him


Cited: Clifton, Lucille. “Homage to my hips.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 10th ed. New York: Longman, 2007. 1095.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lucille Clifton's Poem 'Homage To My Hips'
    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page

    Lucille Clifton's Poem 'Homage To My Hips'

    The poem "homage to my hips" by Lucille Clifton is meant to convey the author's embrace of her femininity and her body. She uses metaphors throughout the poem to convey her acceptance of her own body and to urge other women to do the same. The poem also challenges social norms that apply to women and the beauty ideal. Additionally, Clifton alludes to the need for empowering women. In the opening lines of "Homage to My Hips," Clifton describes how her hips are big and how "they don't fit into little petty places." This line explains how the size and shape of her hips do not fit into the socially accepted beauty ideal of thinness. She then talks about her hips being free and how "these hips have never been enslaved." This line is meant to be…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Book Review Dancing Skeletons
    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Book Review Dancing Skeletons

    Generally speaking, the author considers that the lack of (or erroneous) nutritional education, combined with the women’s position in Malian society (in…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    House on Mango Street 49-69
    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages

    House on Mango Street 49-69

    In the “Hips” chapter concerning the girls’ images of themselves, I learned that Esperanza sees her hips as a sort of gateway and advantage, though she doesn’t know exactly for what yet, as well as they give her a sense of authority to some degree. “They are… ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition. Ready to take you where?” (pg 49) “… That’s right, I add before Lucy or Rachel can make fun of her. She is stupid alright, but she is my sister… it’s obvious I’m the only one who can speak with any authority…” (pg 50) Rachel and Lucy have already succumbed to a certain cultural view of women as eye candy and baby boomers. “[Hips]… are good for holding a baby when you’re cooking Rachel says… You need them to dance, says Lucy.” (pg 49) Nenny is different from Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel in the sense that she is slightly less pack-minded, and is instead more individualistic. “Nenny… doesn’t hear me. She is too many light-years away. She is in a world we don’t belong to anymore.” (pg 52) Even if her reasoning is off sometimes, she has her own sense of logic, maybe because she isn’t depending on the other three girls. Esperanza, speaking to the girls, says, “You gotta know how to walk with hips, practice you know - like if half of you wanted to go one way and the other half the other. [Nenny says] that’s to lullaby it… that’s to rock the baby asleep inside you.”…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Kayla &Kupono - Addiction
    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Kayla &Kupono - Addiction

    A lot of the suspension in this dance leads to the sustainment of many movements. The suspension in the movements adds the effect of the addiction and really shows that the girl is struggling against the boy ‘addiction.’ All of the qualities of movement and body actions are used in this dance piece all to the best advantage to portray the story. There is a few swinging movements; such as when he is throwing her around, it’s like he is swinging her, and also a lot of her leg movements are in swinging motions. There are also a lot of percussive movements in this piece which really gets the fighting point across; that the girl is fighting/struggling against the ‘drug’. The main one that’s really impressive and really stays in your mind is the one that gets repeated at the end where he is grabbing her in different places and she is throwing his hands off her trying to break away. This part of the dance could also be classified as vibratory. It’s probably the most effective part of the whole dance as it really connects with the audience, gets the point across and stays in your mind. Collapsing is used to great effect in this dance which also helps get the point across that she is struggling against the ‘drug’.…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Homage To My Hips By Lucille Clifton
    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Homage To My Hips By Lucille Clifton

    Embracing your sexuality can be quite scary in a world where it seems people wants to tear you down at every chance. It should be noted that lines nine and ten, Clifton could very well mean multiple things when she writes “they go where they want to go / they do what they want to do.” These lines imply that she not only feels that the extent of what she does with her hips is her business, but it also calls into question her own sexual orientation. It is, of course, rather a stretch to assume that these line mean she could be lesbian or bisexual. Still she may have intended to convey that it is no one else’s concern “where they go,” man or woman. Regardless, the statements “they don’t like to be held back / these hips have never been enslaved,” in lines seven and eight are nothing short of inspiring for all women. This message states that women should have as much freedom with their body as men without being shamed for it. This argument for freedom for women has come up in history countless times. The nineteenth amendment granted women freedom to vote, but when will women be granted freedom over their bodies without having to feel shame?…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Secretary Chant
    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Secretary Chant

    The tone is set from the first line of the poem. It is so vague as to use a simple simile, but a strong manifestation of the idea of the speaker is an actual personification of a material object. She does not say, “My hips are like a desk,” but says, “My hips are a desk.” Throughout the rest of the poem, personification of the women as nothing more than a piece of office equipment is expressed with striking realism.…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Summer reading packet
    • 1924 Words
    • 18 Pages

    Summer reading packet

    For her they show the conflict she feels between her emerging sexual attractiveness and her wanting to be free.…

    • 1924 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    My Hips My Caderas
    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages

    My Hips My Caderas

    Her mother’s side of the family is white Americans who believed being skinny was the key to beauty. In America, we have several reminders of what we should look like. Our models are size zeros. All our foods are low fat or reduced in calories producing dieting. We also promote surgery to stay skinny. Hips or la caderas are seen as fat which is ugly, ugly being the antonym for beauty. On the contrary her father’s side believed that the thicker you were or the more curves that complimented one’s body made you more of a woman. That notion highlighted a woman’s beauty. Caderas, often referred to in her explanation, simply translated is hips. In Latin cultures caderas are the stomach, waist, and thighs. It’s all that makes a “real woman”. La caderas are the essence of a woman. Those who don’t posses these caderas are seen as sick. It’s unattractive to the eye. The different cultures that she exemplifies…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    ‘Comedy, while delights in the events of a topsy-turvy world, is ultimately conservative’ To what extent is this true for the Shakespearean comedy you have studied?
    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages

    ‘Comedy, while delights in the events of a topsy-turvy world, is ultimately conservative’ To what extent is this true for the Shakespearean comedy you have studied?

    The two strongest female characters, amazon warrior Hippolyta and fairy queen Titania, conform to being oppressed in the play by their lovers and their comedy is centred around this theme. After Oberon's spell that forces her to fall in love with Bottom, Titania is humiliated claiming 'O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!' showing that the topsy turvy humour in a queen kissing a donkey, is only able to be expressed by showing the settled dominance of man's social existence.…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Stylistic Analysis of the Lost Baby Poem
    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Stylistic Analysis of the Lost Baby Poem

    In this stylistic analysis of the lost baby poem written by Lucille Clifton I will deal mainly with two aspects of stylistic: derivation and parallelism features present in the poem. However I will first give a general interpretation of the poem to link more easily the stylistic features with the meaning of the poem itself.…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Susan Musgrave's You Didn 'T Fit'
    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Susan Musgrave's You Didn 'T Fit'

    Most girls grow up and think there are certain standards they need to reach in order to feel liked. Standards that are designed to create the perfect image that are otherwise impossible to reach. And when one cannot meet these standards, they feel a sense of humiliation and loathing towards oneself. In this poem, the speaker does not have a lot of self-confidence, for she feels her “bones didn’t fit in [her] body” (32). The speaker felt foreign and awkward in her body and had a…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ella
    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ella

    In poetry, writers often feel or think with a purpose. In the poem, Ella in a Square Apron, Along Highway 80, written by Judy Grahn, there are significant words she uses in order to enhance the personification between women and animals. Along with the poem titled Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, by Adrienne Rich, imagery is taken into consideration when reading into her representations of the feministic personality. Equally, these two poems relate feministic characteristics to those of animals through use of imagery while both are portraying women to reflect the skin of their concealed feelings.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Harlem Dancer
    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Harlem Dancer

    In The Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay, the brief passage that unlocks the poem for me is "The light gauze hanging loose about her form." The metaphor of light gauze suggests that the female dancer had wounds from her past nevertheless she is still beautiful, and her heart is pure and chaste. This implies McKay felt sympathy and admiration for the dancer. These meanings connect to the rest of the poem in these ways:…

    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Character Analysis on the Conflicts and Themes of Godfather Death
    • 2292 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Character Analysis on the Conflicts and Themes of Godfather Death

    Notes adopted from Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama and A Short Guide to Writing About Literature…

    • 2292 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Spoken Word Poetry
    • 847 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Spoken Word Poetry

    To hear such powerful words in such a strong voice come from the tiny body was absolutely amazing. Today, I had the pleasure of being part of the audience to which Gabriela Garcia Medina delivered several of her lengthy, yet heartfelt poems. When you first see Gabriela, you would never think that inside the small body lies such power and self-confidence. She captivates her audience, makes them laugh, cry and think from deep within themselves and in the end leaves them wanting to hear more of what she has to say.…

    • 847 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More