"i am accused of tending to the past" by Lucille Clifton – Literary Critic

S: Mother/ Female
O: Birth of history
A: Those not aware of where it comes from
P: to explain the basics about historyS: History
Tone: warnful, bewaring

In “i am accused of tending to the past” by Lucille Clifton, I felt that she put out her point in the poem clearly. As I read this poem I paraphrase or summarized a couple of point in order to gain a better understanding. First of all, I understood that the speaker did not sculpt or make the past with her own hands. I think she was clearly connecting it to the people before her who sculpted it and then she learned from off it. Secondly, rather than making it herself, she claimed that the past was actually waiting for her, and that she birth and adopted history. Furthermore, she is taking history into her own life. Clifton is explicating that the speaker “took it to breast” (9) and really learned from it. Lastly, Clifton is conveying a bigger meaning, which history relates to the lives, languages, culture, and the times of humans. The speaker has the metaphor of a nurturing mother who cares about history and takes history with her wherever she goes, which could relate to history in school or just literally taking a history book with you and reading through it. Clifton states, “when she is strong enough to travel on her own, beware, she will” (15-16). I thought it was wonderful, how she personified history, and felt that if she would not personified history then the poem would have been too plain. I thought Clifton was a bit sarcastic, because some people are not fond of history, yet it seems that she’s telling them history is coming for them.