1. Sports|ethics|literature
Claudia Rankine, Citizen, pp. 1-66

2. Claudia rankine
A friend tells you he has seen a photograph of you on the Internet
and he wants to know
why
you look so angry. ~
Obviously this unsmiling image of you makes him feel uncomfortable, and
he needs you to account for that (46).

3. Claudia rankine
Born in Jamaica in 1963, moved to the United States at age seven
Catholic school in the Bronx, Williams College in Massachusetts (1986)
MFA from Columbia University in 1993
Wrote four books of poetry and has taught at Case Western, Barnard (NYC), the University of Georgia, the University of Houston, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Pomona College prior to Citizen
Citizen (2014) has sold 150,000 copies and is the first book of poetry to make the New York Times best-seller list
First book nominated for both the National Book Critic Circle Award for both “poetry” and “criticism”
After Citizen, Rankine accepted a position as Aerol Arnold Chair of English at the University of Southern California, followed by a new five-year gig at Yale

4. Citizen
Citizen: An American Lyric originated in conversations with friends, where they would recount the everyday “micro aggressions” they faced as black Americans.
Citizen pulls a lot of these stories together so that it seems as though they happen to one person
Rankine also labels Citizen “An American Lyric”
“lyric poetry”: a type of poetry which expresses personal emotions and feelings, usually written in first person – focuses on everyday events
“lyric” as opposed to “epic”: long narrative about heroic deeds and events

5. Rankine/Citizen
Rankine is married to the photographer and mixed-media artist John Lucas
As a result, she incorporates a decent amount of artwork and mixed-media into her own poetry, as well
David Hammonds,
In the Hood (1993)

6. Glenn Ligon,
“I do not always feel colored.” &
“I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.”

7. Three questions
1) General: Describe your experience reading Citizen. How did anecdotes or episodes from Citizen reflect or differ from scenes in Friday Night Lights?

8. Three questions
2) Specific: Were there any moments, themes, or patterns that stood out from this opening portion of Citizen? Did you find these moments relatable, alienating, likely, implausible, or something else? What relationship should we have to the book?

9. Three questions
3) Why does Rankine discuss Serena Williams? How does that help her make any of the arguments that she’s interested in making?

10. SERENA LINKS
3) Why does Rankine discuss Serena Williams? How does that help her make any of the arguments that she’s interested in making?
Serena vs. Jennifer Capriati, 2004:
Serena vs. Kim Clijsters, 2011: