Lucille Clifton, award-winning poet, dies at 73

(AP) — Lucille Clifton, a National Book Award-winning poet and Pulitzer finalist, has died. She was 73.

Clifton's sister, Elaine Philip of Buffalo, N.Y., said the former poet laureate of Maryland passed away Saturday morning at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

Philip said the cause of death was unclear but Clifton was hospitalized for an infection last week at a hospital in Columbia, Md., before being transferred to Baltimore.

The native of Depew, N.Y., won the National Book Award in 2000 for "Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000." She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1988.

Survivors include three daughters, a son and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.