Celebration (Motif)
The poem repeatedly touches on the act of celebrating, with Clifton emphasizing the power of celebration as a means to validate and bolster others, especially in the midst of hardship. While celebration is often associated with extravagance, Clifton here places the concept in a starker context—one of survival. Meanwhile, the repeated phrase "won't you celebrate with me" stresses two contradictory aspects of celebration. On the one hand, the words "with me" suggest that the speaker can celebrate on her own. Even though celebration is often thought of as inherently social, the speaker, accustomed to making do, is able to celebrate without help. At the same time, the imploring request she makes to the listener shows that she wants, and believes herself worthy of, company in her celebration.
The Body (Motif)
Clifton uses imagery and references to the body to make the speaker's struggles and triumphs more vivid and concrete, and to highlight the life-or-death nature of the conflicts in the speaker's life. This is most starkly evident in the poem's closing lines, "everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed." There, while the poem can be read figuratively as well as literally, Clifton raises the possibility of real and even fatal bodily harm. Earlier, the speaker notes that the body into which she was born, through no choice of her own, has caused her to be persecuted. The body, however, is also a tool of survival, as the poem suggests with the line "my one hand holding tight/my other hand." The image of a "bridge between / starshine and clay" offers a key into the poem's depiction of embodiedness: the speaker understands all that has happened to her, whether good or bad, as taking place in an area of balance and tension between the body and the spirit or mind.
