Claudia Rankine on Michael Brown

A short clip from the October 23, 2014 ALOUD program, “Robin Coste Lewis and Claudia Rankine: Poet as Citizen.”

Two powerful poets read from their work and discuss how poetry can become an active tool for rethinking race in America. This clip features Claudia Rankine, a poet whose incendiary book, Citizen: An American Lyric, is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our often named “post-racial” society.

Claudia Rankine is the author of four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. She currently serves as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Pomona College in California. She is a recent recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize, given annually by Poets & Writers, “to an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.”