Quilting - Foxes in the Poetry of Lucille Clifton In 1942 Virginia Woolf read an article to the Women's Service League on "The Angel in the House." For Woolf, this "Angel" represented the voice deep in a woman's mind saying, "Never let anyone guess that you have a mind of your own" (1346). In Woolf's time a woman was not supposed to write critically. Rather, a woman was supposed "to be understanding; to be tender; to flatter; to deceive; to use all the arts and wiles of her sex." Woolf writes of the need to "kill" this angel. He says, “If I had not killed her, she would have killed me” (1346). Thankfully today it is no longer considered improper for a woman to write critically and truthfully, but Lucille Clifton has her own "angel to kill" in some of her poems. Clifton is a female artist who uses her past experiences and those of her ancestors to write her poems. Clifton uses the ideas of light and foxes to convey the joy she feels in being a poet, as well as the fear an artist sometimes feels when first struck by the idea of ​​a poem. The poems "tell our stories" and "the coming of fox" reveal the feelings of fear an artist can feel when creating a work. In "telling our stories" Clifton compares a fox to a poet: the fox came to my door every evening without asking for anything. my fear trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her, but she sat until morning, waiting. At dawn, each of us got up, looked through the glass and then left. Did he gather his village around him and sing the hairless face of the moon? , the trembling muzzle, the ignorant eyes? Child, I tell you now it wasn't the animal blood I was hiding from, it was the poet in her, the poet and the terrible... middle of paper... .ht some "terrible stories". By bringing these "terrible stories" to light, a poet in effect kills the "angels" who prevented her from writing. Every author has his own "angel" to kill. Lucille Clifton sees past the fear she has about what she might write about using her gift of poetry to "kill her angel." Works Cited Clifton, Lucille. Good Woman: Poems and Memoirs: 1969-1980. Rochester, New York: BOA, 1987.---. Quilting: Poems 1987-1990. Rochester, New York: BOA, 1991.---. The terrible stories. Brockport, NY: BOA, 1996. Rushing, Andrea Benton. “Lucille Clifton: A Changing Voice for Changing Times.” Contemporary literary criticism. Ed. Ruggero Matuz. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc, 1991. 79-81.Woolf, Virginia. "Professions for women". The Norton anthology of women's literature. Ed. Sandra M. Gilbert and S. Gubar. New York, New York: Norton, 1996. 1345-48.