Lucille Clifton, Award-winning Poet, Dies at 73

BALTIMORE (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.