Lucille Clifton, who has been praised for...

Lucille Clifton, who has been praised for eloquently giving poetic voice to the black and female experience, will read from her works at Cal State Los Angeles on Tuesday.

A New York Times book review called “Good Times”--her first volume of poetry, published in 1969--one of the 10 best books of the year. Since then, eight other volumes of her poetry have been published. She has written 20 books for children.

“Seeing with clarity the bitterness, ugliness and adversity wrought by racism, she nevertheless is constructive and optimistic. There is celebration, affirmation, of black life in her poems,” says the “Contemporary Poets” entry on Clifton.

“I am a black woman poet and I sound like one,” Clifton says.

Now a professor of literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz, she was poet laureate of Maryland from 1976 to 1985. Clifton, 54, has read her poetry on nationally televised network programs as well at the White House.

At Cal State L.A., her reading will begin at 7 p.m. in the Los Angeles Room of the University Student Union, not far from the Eastern Avenue exit of the San Bernardino Freeway. Admission is free. A reception and book signing will follow. Information is available from the English department at (213) 343-4140.

Here is an excerpt from a poem that appears in her acclaimed book, “An Ordinary Woman”:

at last we killed the roaches.

mama and me. she sprayed,

i swept the ceiling and they fell

dying onto our shoulders, in our hair

covering us with red. the tribe was broken,

the cooking pots were ours again

and we were glad, such cleanliness was grace