Claudia Rankine, Reading and Public Conversation
Bio - Claudia Rankine (from Poetry Foundation and her personal website)
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Claudia Rankine is the author of several collections of poetry including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric and Nothing in Nature is Private, winner of the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. Her most recent book, Citizen: An American Lyric, is a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has written two plays: Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, and Existing Conditions (with Casey Llewellyn). Co-editor of Wesleyan University’s American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century series, she has received awards and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Recipient of degrees from Williams College and Columbia University, she has taught at the University of Houston, Case Western Reserve University, and Barnard College. She currently teaches poetry at Pomona College.
Co-Sponsored by the Schlesinger Visiting Writers Series of the English Department, The James Weldon Johnson Collection, the African American Studies Department, and the Graduate Poets Reading Series.