This Morning by Lucille Clifton Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from New York. Her work emphasizes endurance, mostly focusing on her African - American experience and family life. Common topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African American heritage, and feminist themes, with particular emphasis on the female body. This poem is mostly about how the speaker view her identity. The purpose of this poem is to show that the speaker’s belief in herself. The first sentence, “This morning I met myself coming in” means that as the girl wakes up, she recognizes who she is and then she describes herself. There are metaphors used in the second stanza, the sentence “a bright jungle girl shining” represents an image of a girl who is very active. This metaphor also describes things in nature, it shows that the speaker see herself as an unique, and special. “This Morning” it’s a metaphor for the present time, is that she found herself or appreciates herself. In the last stanza, it says “And all day I have been a black bell ringing I survive, survive, survive.” it means, out of all the things that she has been through, now she has finally got through her problems and found the person she truly is, in Lucille Clifton’s case, it means she found where she stood in the society as an African - American. The speaker kept repeating “I met myself” in line 3 and line 12 to show that she survives from her problems. A simile is a figure of speech that expresses he resemblance of one thing to another of a different category, usually introduced by as or like. There’s a simile used in the second stanza, “shining quick as a snake.” So in this sentence, the speaker is seeing herself as mysterious, swift, or even energetic person. Also the words such as “a me girl” in line 2-4, means how the speaker sees herself, she see herself as a unique person.