Harsh conditions, death, poverty, the overall unsentimental nature of life, and definition of an identity are all are subjects explored by writers Lucille Clifton and John Crowe Ransom in their writings. Although the two poets came from very different lives, the unique search for identity and meaning in life unites the two writer's poems in their expression of life.
John Crowe Ransom a very distinguished gentleman born as the third child to a Methodist minister was raised in a very literate family. At age fifteen Ransom enrolled in Tennessee's esteemed Vanderbilt University where he later became a founding member of the group of writers known as the fugitives. Favoring poetic modernism in the early 1900's, The fugitives focus was on philosophy, american pragmatisim and the loss of a "southern identity and culture" due to the industrialization of the time period. After graduating from Vanderbilt in 1909 Ransom went on to become an English teacher, Rhodes Scholar and later the headof the english department at Vnderbilt. Allthe while Ransom gained notoriety with scholars for his candid and unique way of examining emotional situations with little eotional pull or bias. With rootsin psychology, Ransom's poetry examines the ironic and unsentimental nature of life.
Much like Ransom, poet Lucille Clifton often explored the rigityof the world, however Clifton's insight and ability to write about such rigity come from her impoverished and unprivilaged upbringing. Born in 1936 to father Samuel Louis and mother Thelma Lucille Sayles, Lucille Clifton was brn and raised in New York. (Daniel) Lucille descended from a long line of strong and resilient women who have battled and overcome adversity. (daniel) Clifton's Great great grandmother is said to have been kidnapped from Dahomey, West Africa and brought to America for slavery. Clifton's strong and enDuring love for her family can be seen in much of her poetry as well as in the full account of her families story in Clifton's 1976 memoir generations.