Citizen: An American Lyric
Books | Performing Arts / Theater / General
4.1
Stephen Sachs
Claudia Rankine
A searing, poetic riff on race in America, fusing prose, poetry, movement, music, and the visual image. Snapshots, vignettes, on the acts of everyday racism. 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, online, on TV—everywhere, all the time. Those did-that-really-just-happen-did-they-really-just-say-that slurs that happen every day and enrage in the moment and later steep poisonously in the mind. And, of course, those larger incidents that become national or international firestorms. As Rankine writes, “This is how you are a citizen.”
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Author
Stephen Sachs
Pages
46
Publisher
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Published Date
2018-12-06
ISBN
0822238373 9780822238379
Community ReviewsSee all
"REREAD: I remember originally reading this book freshman year of college and it was quite intense. It is just as intense now, with its harsh take on racism, micro-aggressions and the experience of being black in America. It truly makes you think. I feel bad, like I cannot rate this book or truly review it as it is not a book to enjoy. It is a book to experience, especially as a white person as all of these essays and poems are of a lived experience that I will never share. I will say that I also saw a live performance play of the book which I felt was more impactful. "
Madeline Glanton
"Searing. Evocative. Emotional. Triggering. Accurate. Sympathetic. Forceful. Real. There aren’t enough words in the human language to define the range of emotions this book elicits. Each poem transports you into the situation it details so fully that you will feel like you wrote it. So much of the book was triggering for me as 90% of the micro aggressions recounted in the book are ones I experience on a daily basis. The use of art media is strategic, as pieces are placed in relation to the story being told. The images are so thought-provoking, especially one rendering of a lynching scene that has been displayed many times in books and documentaries. I had not read any of Rankine’s works before, but I am now in awe. It is a heavy read for poetry, but only because it is like reliving scenes from my life that I would rather not remember, but that I must in order to survive this society."
Liz Thurman