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Hartsville, S.C. — Lucille Clifton, the former poet laureate of the state of Maryland, is the guest speaker at Coker College’s ceremonial opening of the academic year on Thursday, August 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Watson Theater of the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Performing Arts Center. Admission to the Opening Convocation is free and the public is invited to attend.

Clifton, who was Maryland’s state poet from 1979 until 1985, has received many fellowships and awards for her poetry collections and children’s books, including the Shelley Memorial Prize, a Charity Randall Citation, and an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The New York Public Library has recognized Clifton as a Literary Lion and she has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Clifton has published 10 collections of her poetry, one autobiographical prose work, and 19 children’s books. She has been anthologized in well over 100 books of poetry, has appeared on The Today Show, Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, The Power of the Word with Bill Moyers, and Nightline with Ted Koppel.

Her most recent publication, The Terrible Stories, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Lenore Marshall Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. In May of 1998, Slow Dancer Press published The Terrible Stories in England, and in December of that year the Lila Wallace Foundation announced its recognition of her work by granting her a 1999 Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award.

Clifton serves on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets and was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, published by BOA Editions in 2000.

Clifton is the Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Her appearance at Coker College is part of the annual Lois Walters Coker Lecture Series. There will be a reception for Clifton in the Stein Gallery of the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Performing Arts Center following Opening Convocation.

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