Description:

About this item:

* Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry *
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award *

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . .

A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric.

Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Review

A New York Times Book Review "100 Best Books of the 21st Century"

“[Citizen] is an especially vital book for this moment in time. . . . The realization at the end of this book sits heavily upon the heart: 'This is how you are a citizen,' Rankine writes. 'Come on. Let it go. Move on.' As Rankine's brilliant, disabusing work, always aware of its ironies, reminds us, 'moving on' is not synonymous with 'leaving behind.'” ―The New Yorker

“Citizen is audacious in form. But what is perhaps especially striking about the book is that it has achieved something that eludes much modern poetry: urgency.” ―The New York Times

“So groundbreaking is Rankine's work that it's almost impossible to describe; suffice it to say that this is a poem that reads like an essay (or the other way around) - a piece of writing that invents a new form for itself, incorporating pictures, slogans, social commentary and the most piercing and affecting revelations to evoke the intersection of inner and outer life.” ―Los Angeles Times

“Rankine brilliantly pushes poetry's forms to disarm readers and circumvent our carefully constructed defense mechanisms against the hint of possibly being racist ourselves. . . . Citizen throws a Molotov cocktail at the notion that reduction of injustice is the same as freedom.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Moving, stunning, and formally innovative-in short, a masterwork.” ―Salon

“Part protest lyric, part art book, Citizen is a dazzling expression of the painful double consciousness of black life in America.” ―The Washington Post

“The book of the year is Claudia Rankine's Citizen. It would have been the book of any year.... Citizen asks us to change the way we look; we have to believe that that might lead to changing the way we live.” ―The New Yorker’s Page-Turner

“[Citizen] is one of the best books I've ever wanted not to read. . . . Its genius . . . resides in that capacity to make so many different versions of American life proper to itself, to instruct us in the depth and variety of our participation in a narrative of race that we recount and reinstate, even when we speak as though it weren't there.” ―Slate

“Marrying prose, poetry, and the visual image, Citizen investigates the ways in which racism pervades daily American social and cultural life, rendering certain of its citizens politically invisible. Rankine's formally inventive book challenges our notion that citizenship is only a legal designation that the state determines by expanding that definition to include a larger understanding of civic belonging and identity, built out of cross-racial empathy, communal responsibility, and a deeply shared commitment to equality.” ―National Book Award Judges’ Citation

“Citizen is an anatomy of American racism in the new millennium, a slender, musical book that arrives with the force of a thunderclap. . . . This work is careful, loving, restorative witness is itself an act of resistance, a proof of endurance.” ―Bookforum

“Accounts of racially charged interactions, insidious and flagrant, transpiring in private and in the public eye, distill the immediate emotional intensity of individual experience with tremendous precision while allowing ambiguity, ambivalence, contradiction, and exhaustion to remain in all their fraught complexity. . . . Once again Rankine inspires sympathy and outrage, but most of all a will to take a deep look at ourselves and our society.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A prism of personal perspectives illuminates [Rankine's] meditations on race. . . . Powerful.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Claudia Rankine's Citizen comes at you like doom. It's the best note in the wrong song that is America. Its various realities--'mistaken' identity, social racism, the whole fabric of urban and suburban life--are almost too much to bear, but you bear them, because it's the truth. Citizen is Rankine's Spoon River Anthology, an epic as large and frightening and beautiful as the country and various emotional states that produced it.” ―Hilton Als

About the Author

Claudia Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Her work has appeared recently in the Guardian, the New York Times Book Review, the New York Times Magazine, and the Washington Post. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, the winner of the 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize, and a contributing editor of Poets & Writers. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. Rankine is the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Citizen

Name: Citizen: An American Lyric
Brand: Graywolf Press
SKU: U1555976905
Price: 7.99 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.5 (9 reviews)

An American Lyric

By Claudia Rankine

GRAYWOLF PRESS

When you are alone and too tired even to turn on any of your devices, you let yourself linger in a past stacked among your pillows. Usually you are nestled under blankets and the house is empty. Sometimes the moon is missing and beyond the windows the low, gray ceiling seems approachable. Its dark light dims in degrees depending on the density of clouds and you fall back into that which gets reconstructed as metaphor.

The route is often associative. You smell good. You are twelve attending Sts. Philip and James School on White Plains Road and the girl sitting in the seat behind asks you to lean to the right during exams so she can copy what you have written. Sister Evelyn is in the habit of taping the 100s and the failing grades to the coat closet doors. The girl is Catholic with waist-length brown hair. You can't remember her name: Mary? Catherine?

You never really speak except for the time she makes her request and later when she tells you you smell good and have features more like a white person. You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person.

Sister Evelyn never figures out your arrangement perhaps because you never turn around to copy Mary Catherine's answers. Sister Evelyn must think these two girls think a lot alike or she cares less about cheating and more about humiliation or she never actually saw you sitting there.

Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs. Like thunder they drown you in sound, no, like lightning they strike you across the larynx. Cough. After it happened I was at a loss for words. Haven't you said this yourself? Haven't you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life. Eventually she stopped doing this, though she never acknowledged her slippage. And you never called her on it (why not?) and yet, you don't forget. If this were a domestic tragedy, and it might well be, this would be your fatal flaw—your memory, vessel of your feelings. Do you feel hurt because it's the "all black people look the same" moment, or because you are being confused with another after being so close to this other?

An unsettled feeling keeps the body front and center. The wrong words enter your day like a bad egg in your mouth and puke runs down your blouse, a dampness drawing your stomach in toward your rib cage. When you look around only you remain. Your own disgust at what you smell, what you feel, doesn't bring you to your feet, not right away, because gathering energy has become its own task, needing its own argument. You are reminded of a conversation you had recently, comparing the merits of sentences constructed implicitly with "yes, and" rather than "yes, but." You and your friend decided that "yes, and" attested to a life with no turn-off, no alternative routes: you pull yourself to standing, soon enough the blouse is rinsed, it's another week, the blouse is beneath your sweater, against your skin, and you smell good.

The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses to single out what you know is there because doubt is inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. Yes, and it's raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment stinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you.

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there.

You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates this is an okay conversation to be having.

Why do you feel comfortable saying this to me? You wish the light would turn red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you, fly forward so quickly both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind.

As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache-producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn't include acting like this moment isn't inhabitable, hasn't happened before, and the before isn't part of the now as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.

When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term—John Henryism—for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend.

Because of your elite status from a year's worth of travel, you have already settled into your window seat on United Airlines, when the girl and her mother arrive at your row. The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. The mother's response is barely audible—I see, she says. I'll sit in the middle.

A woman you do not know wants to join you for lunch. You are visiting her campus. In the café you both order the Caesar salad. This overlap is not the beginning of anything because she immediately points out that she, her father, her grandfather, and you, all attended the same college. She wanted her son to go there as well, but because of affirmative action or minority something—she is not sure what they are calling it these days and weren't they supposed to get rid of it?—her son wasn't accepted. You are not sure if you are meant to apologize for this failure of your alma mater's legacy program; instead you ask where he ended up. The prestigious school she mentions doesn't seem to assuage her irritation. This exchange, in effect, ends your lunch. The salads arrive.

A friend argues that Americans battle between the "historical self" and the "self self." By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning. Then you are standing face-to-face in seconds that wipe the affable smiles right from your mouths. What did you say? Instantaneously your attachment seems fragile, tenuous, subject to any transgression of your historical self. And though your joined personal histories are supposed to save you from misunderstandings, they usually cause you to understand all too well what is meant.

You and your partner go to see the film The House We Live In. You ask a friend to pick up your child from school. On your way home your phone rings. Your neighbor tells you he is standing at his window watching a menacing black guy casing both your homes. The guy is walking back and forth talking to himself and seems disturbed.

You tell your neighbor that your friend, whom he has met, is babysitting. He says, no, it's not him. He's met your friend and this isn't that nice young man. Anyway, he wants you to know, he's called the police.

Your partner calls your friend and asks him if there's a guy walking back and forth in front of your home. Your friend says that if anyone were outside he would see him because he is standing outside. You hear the sirens through the speakerphone.

Your friend is speaking to your neighbor when you arrive home. The four police cars are gone. Your neighbor has apologized to your friend and is now apologizing to you. Feeling somewhat responsible for the actions of your neighbor, you clumsily tell your friend that the next time he wants to talk on the phone he should just go in the backyard. He looks at you a long minute before saying he can speak on the phone wherever he wants. Yes, of course, you say. Yes, of course.

When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as niggers. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you.

He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say.

Now there you go, he responds.

The people around you have turned away from their screens. The teenagers are on pause. There I go? you ask, feeling irritation begin to rain down. Yes, and something about hearing yourself repeating this stranger's accusation in a voice usually reserved for your partner makes you smile.

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He's okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger's arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. Yes, and you want it to stop, you want the child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet, to be brushed off by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.

At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?

It's as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that's right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry.

CHAPTER 2

Hennessy Youngman aka Jayson Musson, whose Art Thoughtz take the form of tutorials on YouTube, educates viewers on contemporary art issues. In one of his many videos, he addresses how to become a successful black artist, wryly suggesting black people's anger is marketable. He advises black artists to cultivate "an angry nigger exterior" by watching, among other things, the Rodney King video while working.

Youngman's suggestions are meant to expose expectations for blackness as well as to underscore the difficulty inherent in any attempt by black artists to metabolize real rage. The commodified anger his video advocates rests lightly on the surface for spectacle's sake. It can be engaged or played like the race card and is tied solely to the performance of blackness and not to the emotional state of particular individuals in particular situations.

On the bridge between this sellable anger and "the artist" resides, at times, an actual anger. Youngman in his video doesn't address this type of anger: the anger built up through experience and the quotidian struggles against dehumanization every brown or black person lives simply because of skin color. This other kind of anger in time can prevent, rather than sponsor, the production of anything except loneliness.

You begin to think, maybe erroneously, that this other kind of anger is really a type of knowledge: the type that both clarifies and disappoints. It responds to insult and attempted erasure simply by asserting presence, and the energy required to present, to react, to assert is accompanied by visceral disappointment: a disappointment in the sense that no amount of visibility will alter the ways in which one is perceived.

Recognition of this lack might break you apart. Or recognition might illuminate the erasure the attempted erasure triggers. Whether such discerning creates a healthier, if more isolated, self, you can't know. In any case, Youngman doesn't speak to this kind of anger. He doesn't say that witnessing the expression of this more ordinary and daily anger might make the witness believe that a person is "insane."

And insane is what you think, one Sunday afternoon, drinking an Arnold Palmer, watching the 2009 Women's US Open final, when brought to full attention by the suddenly explosive behavior of Serena Williams. Serena in HD before your eyes becomes overcome by a rage you recognize and have been taught to hold at a distance for your own good. Serena's behavior, on this particular Sunday afternoon, suggests that all the injustice she has played through all the years of her illustrious career flashes before her and she decides finally to respond to all of it with a string of invectives. Nothing, not even the repetition of negations ("no, no, no") she employed in a similar situation years before as a younger player at the 2004 US Open, prepares you for this. Oh my God, she's gone crazy, you say to no one.

What does a victorious or defeated black woman's body in a historically white space look like? Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind Zora Neale Hurston's "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background." This appropriated line, stenciled on canvas by Glenn Ligon, who used plastic letter stencils, smudging oil sticks, and graphite to transform the words into abstractions, seemed to be ad copy for some aspect of life for all black bodies.

Hurston's statement has been played out on the big screen by Serena and Venus: they win sometimes, they lose sometimes, they've been injured, they've been happy, they've been sad, ignored, booed mightily (see Indian Wells, which both sisters have boycotted since 2001), they've been cheered, and through it all and evident to all were those people who are enraged they are there at all—graphite against a sharp white background.

For years you attribute to Serena Williams a kind of resilience appropriate only for those who exist in celluloid. Neither her father nor her mother nor her sister nor Jehovah her God nor NIKE camp could shield her ultimately from people who felt her black body didn't belong on their court, in their world. From the start many made it clear Serena would have done better struggling to survive in the two-dimensionality of a Millet painting, rather than on their tennis court—better to put all that strength to work in their fantasy of her working the land, rather than be caught up in the turbulence of our ancient dramas, like a ship fighting a storm in a Turner seascape.

(Continues...)Excerpted from Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Copyright © 2014 Claudia Rankine. Excerpted by permission of GRAYWOLF PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Review:

4.9 out of 5

97.78% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterful Examination of Modern Racism

M.K. · June 23, 2024

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is a profoundly moving exploration of contemporary racism through a unique blend of poetry, prose, and visual art. Each page captures the raw, often painful experiences of racial aggression and microaggressions, making the reader keenly aware of the everyday realities faced by people of color. Rankine’s poignant and unflinching narrative is an essential read, offering a powerful testament to the individual and collective impact of systemic racism in America.

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth Be Told

P.F. · March 1, 2016

Citizen: An American LyricRankin is a national treasure - she speaks eloquently of truth, beauty, hatred and love. THis book was stunning in all aspects.Citizen is divided into seven sections. It has no table of contents nor index. The poems are without title. There is nothing given to the reader to ground her in any specific time, place, or frame. Rankine uses this lack of bounded-ness well as she weave her words in an out of a dream like existential world, which, she sharply illuminates with a sudden turn to a dark reality. Citizen is illustrated with a variety of art works. These serve to heighten the tension inherent in her voice; to make visible her words, as if her words were not sufficiently visible and striking. These pictures serve to extend the conversation she has and add depth to the feelings that have no name or bottom. The book is audacious in its form, being a clarion call to action. The variation of verse to poem left me surprised and drawn in to this work as one piece, rather than separate poems about racial justice and equality. Rankine all but screams from many of the pages, telling the reader to feel ashamed, frightened, furious about the larger social and smaller personal injustices suffered by Black Americans. One of her pieces (p. 49) asks the question “what makes language hurtful?” a particularly cogent topic to someone who deals in words. Rankine takes this theme and runs with it, unfolding the gift wrap on the box to reveal the empty box contained within. Not even an empty box, a box that does not exist, but is painfully present in its box-hood. She refers to “language that feels hurtful is intended to exploit all the ways you are present.” Instead of the invisibility of race, Rankine presents the hyper-visibility of race as seen in our “language acts.” This was a revelation to me; language as a way not to erase but to heighten the presence of an outcast group. Citizen’s hybrid style of presentation is bold, cutting, and if you can handle it, accurate. She writes about the truths we try to shrug off or deny. Rankine takes what the world views as news and expresses it as the banal quotidian lived experiences of other (Black) people. She uses both politics and the prosaic insults inherent in the day of a (Black) citizen. And she speaks poetry. For example:“Yesterday called to say we were together and you were bloodshot and again the day carried you across a field of hours, deep into dawn, back to now, where you are thankful for what faces, the storm, this day’s sigh as the day shifts its leaves, the wind, a prompt against the calm you can’t digest.” (p.75)The soft hush, the warm breeze, the tension of this quiet backdrop is felt against the reality of a (Black) person’s day. It is so evocative, of what? Therein lies the tension.

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and Thought-Provoking: Citizen: An American Lyric

k. · June 5, 2023

Citizen: An American Lyric is an exceptional and thought-provoking book that delves into the complexities of race, identity, and belonging in America. The author's lyrical and poetic writing style captures the essence of the experiences faced by Black individuals in a society plagued by systemic racism. Through a collection of vignettes, prose, and poetry, the book explores themes of microaggressions, social injustice, and the impact of racism on everyday life. The raw and honest portrayal of these experiences evokes a range of emotions, from anger and frustration to empathy and reflection. Citizen is a vital read that challenges readers to confront their own biases and engage in conversations about race and equality. It serves as a powerful tool for fostering understanding and empathy, making it a must-read for anyone interested in social justice and the pursuit of a more inclusive society.

5.0 out of 5 stars Read with 18 year old white college students with some success (from a professor)

E. · October 27, 2016

I am reviewing this book specifically with attention to reading in my class called Citizen and Self which is about how we can live better among each other, increase participation in democratic life, and learn how to collaboratively solve problems. I read it with mostly first year college students in Kentucky. Almost all of my students are white. While some students had a hard time with the ideas - and some with the poetry, overall I thought it worked well as long as I reminded them that the book is not directed "at" them but is rather an account of someone's experience and a way to understand the life and challenges that people face in our country. I still had some students who were defensive about the book, or thought that she was being "too sensitive" but by and large the students found it interesting, helpful at seeing a different perspective and helpful in understanding the experiences of African American people in the United States. Most of them said something like, "I had no idea that this was so hard" or "that racism is still so prevalent" or that "the small things every day can be so difficult and become so big and difficult." It was certainly a challenge for them to read but I think overall was helpful. Some of the students were even able to engage with the prose/poems from a literary perspective, talking about the trajectory of the book/poems and the literary devices that she used to draw us in and help the reader see things in a different way. Teaching about race is difficult, but for college students most of whom have never had any exposure to complex ideas about race or racism, short of the basic "you shouldn't treat people of another race badly" this book was a good step in engaging them in the complex and difficult questions of race, justice, fairness, and struggle in the U.S. and also helpful in allowing them to get some practice in reading something with a non-traditional form.

RAS

D.J.C. · March 3, 2023

Utilisé dans le cadre scolaire

Well written and delivery was fantastic

N. · October 15, 2020

I had to buy this book for my english class. GREAT BOOK! Very well written, the author did a wonderful job.In according to the delivery - it was absolutely perfect. Not a single dent or scratch and the papers were all in tact. Honestly, almost better than buying a book from the bookstore.

Prose-Poetry that will make you look at racism and see what it does.

V.T. · February 6, 2020

“Citizen – An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine is a book which can be applied to anywhere in any country. It is on racism and according to me racism is not just deep-rooted in The United States of America. It is prevalent all over the world and that is not something to be proud of for anyone. I chanced on this book on Salon.com. It was heavily recommended by one writer whose name I forget. All said and done, I am only too glad that I picked it up and cannot stop talking about it.“Citizen” is the perfect book of our times and sadly represents the world that we live in. It is an age of race differentiation, colour differentiation and violence and maybe it never stopped. Maybe it never ended anywhere. This book makes you think in ways you didn’t think it was possible to do. It ruffles your feathers and rightly so. It is needed at this juncture. I think it is also the fact that we tend to ignore so many things because we don’t want to confront. I think it is time to confront. Gone are the days of being silent.I think that maybe “Citizen” can somewhere down the line help us understand why things are the way they are and at the same time, there is so much introspection that we need to do as well. And like I said before, the book is not all American, though it seems like that from the title. It can speak to anyone and it does. When Rankine speaks of what Serena Williams had to go through because of her colour, she is speaking to a wider audience and we need more voices such as these. She speaks of shame of colour, of rage, of loneliness, and what it means to be discriminated against.“Citizen” is a read that will take its own time to sink in. You cannot rush through it. It is the kind of read that stays with you and makes you think about the world we live in. The writing is stunning and strong and forces you told contemplate on issues you would have turned a blind eye to. The writing also sort of comes across as an out-of-body experience for Rankine. To distance herself from all of this and write, and then to merge her experiences. I finished this book with a heavy heart. The book can be best summed-up in one line as written by Rankine: “I don’t know how to end what doesn’t have an ending.”Read it. You will not regret it.P.S: This time around was my second read of the book. The first time was in 2015. Sadly, nothing has changed.

Very important book

N. · February 4, 2018

I feel like this is a classic at this point, but I only learned of its existence recently. I love this book. It's so emotional and valuable. Her writing is so poignant.

'The book of a generation'

T. · February 6, 2017

Wow! This is probably one of the most acclaimed poetry collections in recent years and is definitely deserving of all the praise that it is receiving. It is split into seven sections each of which have a slightly different structure but deal predominantly with the idea of race, and how it is dealt with in popular culture. Some sections are more memoir heavy, where as others read like essays but there are obviously a few conforming to more common styles of poetry and language.Rankine is a great poet, her manipulation of language is amazing and the blend of this with modern art throughout the book, makes the book to be both an amazing read, but beautiful as a physical object too.I found the poems moving, angry, emotional and always interesting.This collection only take an hour or two to read but you won't forget about it in a hurry!One paper called it 'The book of a generation.' This definitely has the power and memorability to be that. I would definitely recommend!

Visit the Graywolf Press Store

Citizen: An American Lyric

4.5

^BHD7⁹⁹³

Quantity:

Order today to get by

Free delivery on orders over BHD 20

Return and refund policies

Product origin: United States

Electrical items shipped from the US are by default considered to be 120v, unless stated otherwise in the product description. Contact Bolo support for voltage information of specific products. A step-up transformer is required to convert from 120v to 240v. All heating electrical items of 120v will be automatically cancelled.

All product information listed on the site are from 3rd party sources, including images and reviews. bolo.bh is not liable for any claims or promotions mentioned on the product description or images with textual content. For detailed product information, please contact the manufacturer or Bolo support by logging into your account. Unless stated otherwise during checkout, all import taxes and duty are included in the price mentioned on the product page. bolo.bh follows the rules and regulations of sale in Bahrain and will cancel items in an order that are illegal for sale in Bahrain. We take all the necessary steps to ensure only products for sale in Bahrain are displayed. Product stock and delivery estimate may change with the seller even after placing the order. All items are shipped by air and items marked “Dangerous Goods (DG)” by the IATA will be cancelled from orders. We strive to process your order as soon as it is finalized.

Similar suggestions by Bolo

Similar items from “Poetry”

Books

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Description:

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Citizen

An American Lyric

GRAYWOLF PRESS

Review:

Citizen: An American Lyric

Similar suggestions by Bolo

More from this brand

Similar items from “Poetry”

Description:

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Citizen

An American Lyric

GRAYWOLF PRESS

Review:

Citizen: An American Lyric

Shipping Policies

Voltage Disclaimer

Product Disclaimer

Similar suggestions by Bolo

More from this brand

Similar items from “Poetry”