16 pages • 32 minutes read
Lucille CliftonThe Lost Baby Poem
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Abortion
Abortion is the entire occasion for “the lost baby poem,” and the theme makes the poem particularly sensitive. Abortion is a longstanding and contentious political debate even beyond the United States, but the poem avoids political ideologies or principled stances. Instead, the poem presents abortion as an individual and fundamentally personal experience. The speaker does not philosophize, nor does she invoke any presumedly universal moral schema. Rather, the poem presents her lived experience and the distinct obstacles she faced.
The speaker agonizes over the decision, running through memories of circumstances she feels were extenuating—revealing she likely does perceive some moral weight in her decision, and it was near impossible for a woman of her time to not internalize the ubiquitous cultural condemnation. At the same time, the destitution the speaker describes necessarily deprived her of agency, and the question arises what kind and degree of choice she truly had; even had she sustained the pregnancy, a born child would die or be taken from her and “slip like ice into strangers’ hands” (Line 11). Despite her drastically limited scope of freedom, however, she feels she needs redemption. The whole of the poem suggests the speaker’s pain is largely grief and guilt over a lost relationship, rather than dismay over broken rules—and in the last stanza, she reclaims the relationship through dedicating her life to atonement for “the lost baby.”
The speaker hints at other deeply painful past experiences: “if you were here i could tell you these / and some other things” (Lines 13-14). However, it is her difficult past that fosters her resolve to be a pillar of strength for her other children: ‘if i am ever less than a mountain / for your definite brother and sisters” (Lines 15-16). The speaker acknowledges the trauma of her experience but does not waver in her hope for a better future.
Poverty
The principal factor in the speaker’s decision of abortion was her extreme poverty at the time, and the poem illustrates how socioeconomic disadvantage can deprive a person of authorship of their own life. The speaker describes the ways her financial burdens were already creating almost unlivable conditions: Her home utilities were broken or inoperative due to inadequate funds for either repairs or paying the bills, “in the year of the disconnected gas” (Line 8). The problem was compounded by a very cold winter, “you would have been born into winter” (Line 7), and hinting at the frigid temperatures, “you would have fallen naked as snow into winter” (Line 12). It was impossible to clothe or feed a baby. The speaker recalls the hardship, accepting its truth with deep bitterness and sadness. She does not dwell on what could have been or what she wishes had happened. Instead, she accepts her past and looks to the future, “if you were here i could tell you these / and some other things” (Lines 13-14). Moving away quickly from the painful memories, the final stanza details her strength and resolve as a mode of redemption. Although the speaker faces financial struggle, she does not allow her past to define her future.
Grief & Loss
Throughout the poem, the speaker wrestles with the grief from the abortion. She has trouble determining her own feelings and wavers between shame and sadness. The speaker seems to be at a distance, discussing this painful incident without overly emotional language or dramatic expression, and avoids graphic or scientific descriptions. The speaker’s tone is quiet and reserved, calmly recounting this memory. This reserve and palpable distance represent the speaker’s grief, gaining emphasis through Clifton’s characteristic writing style without punctuation and capitalization. The overwhelming nature of the speaker’s pain is evinced in her motion to dissociate herself from the action by choosing words like “dropped” (Line 1). Dropping something could be an accident, a slip of the hand—at once demonstrating the distance she desires to keep from the event, but also the limited control she had in the decision.
Although the second stanza paints a very grim picture of the future the speaker saw for herself, she still wishes she could share things with this child she never had, still desires to tell stories and teach lessons, “if you were here i could tell you these / and some other things” (Lines 13-14). The final stanza pays homage to her grief and is where she accepts responsibility. Her self-punishing promises represent the hidden powerful anger, regret, guilt, shame, and sadness she feels in relation to the abortion. Acting as the motivation behind her determination to change, the grief and loss she experiences because of this event come to shape and define who she will become for her other children.
Related Titles
By Lucille Clifton
