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avisreadsandreads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Slavery, Child death, Death, Police brutality, Violence, Hate crime, and Grief
rieviolet's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
2.5
I am sorry but this book was really not for me. I did not get along with the writing style nor the way it was structured, these sort of fragmented and episodic reflections were too difficult for me to follow, I mostly felt confused and clueless about what was going on.
Honestly, I understood maybe a third of what I read and while that is certainly on me, it really hampered my fruition of the book and the general appreciation of the reading experience.
I also struggled with the final section in verse and most of it went over my head. I admit that I am not a devoted poetry reader and, when I actually read it, I am usually drawn to a more prose-like and matter-of-fact type of poetry.
I think a book like this is just too much experimental for my personal taste. However, I did appreciate the section focusing on Serena Williams and the racism she experienced in her career as a tennis player, it might be because it was the part that more closely resembled a traditional and straightforward essay.
Honestly, I understood maybe a third of what I read and while that is certainly on me, it really hampered my fruition of the book and the general appreciation of the reading experience.
I also struggled with the final section in verse and most of it went over my head. I admit that I am not a devoted poetry reader and, when I actually read it, I am usually drawn to a more prose-like and matter-of-fact type of poetry.
I think a book like this is just too much experimental for my personal taste. However, I did appreciate the section focusing on Serena Williams and the racism she experienced in her career as a tennis player, it might be because it was the part that more closely resembled a traditional and straightforward essay.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Police brutality
Moderate: Violence and Hate crime
Minor: Blood, Body shaming, Racial slurs, Death, Vomit, Murder, Rape, and Cancer
eve81's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Violence, Murder, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Racism, and Misogyny
savvylit's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Citizen is a brutal look at Black identity, microaggression, police brutality, and erasure. Rankine interweaves personal recollections of microaggressions with examination of racial hatred in the public sphere. For instance, there is a significant section of this book that reflects upon racism faced by Serena Williams. Juxtaposing public instances of racism and police brutality with her own personal experience allows Rankine to emphasize the broad spectrum of a distinctly American brand of racism.
As I tend to do when reviewing poetry, let me leave you with a fragment of Rankine's own words:
"You are you even before you grow into understanding you are not anyone, worthless, not worth you. Even as your own weight insists you are here, fighting off the weight of nonexistence. And still this life parts your lids, you see you seeing your extending hand as a falling wave— I they he she we you turn only to discover the encounter to be alien to this place. Wait. The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you. The opening, between you and you, occupied, zoned for an encounter, given the histories of you and you— And always, who is this you? The start of you, each day, a presence already— Hey you—"
As I tend to do when reviewing poetry, let me leave you with a fragment of Rankine's own words:
"You are you even before you grow into understanding you are not anyone, worthless, not worth you. Even as your own weight insists you are here, fighting off the weight of nonexistence. And still this life parts your lids, you see you seeing your extending hand as a falling wave— I they he she we you turn only to discover the encounter to be alien to this place. Wait. The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you. The opening, between you and you, occupied, zoned for an encounter, given the histories of you and you— And always, who is this you? The start of you, each day, a presence already— Hey you—"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, and Racism
readbycarina's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Police brutality, Hate crime, Racial slurs, and Murder
Moderate: Misogyny
alliemikennareads's review
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Classified as lyrical verse / essays but I consider this somewhere in the poetry genre as well because the writing is extremely poetic. One of the best books I’ve ever read, I will most certainly return to this again. Rankine gives you a window into some of the many micro-aggressions and moments of racism that Black people experience in their day to day life. Each verse is a snapshot depicting a full story in rich detail despite the short length. Very thought provoking. I absolutely would recommend to pretty much anyone because the writing is stunning.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Hate crime, and Racism
lara_bk's review against another edition
challenging
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality, and Hate crime
Moderate: Gun violence and Violence
Minor: Death
five's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Minor: Body shaming, Death, Hate crime, Police brutality, Racial slurs, and Violence
angel_kiiss's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Hate crime and Police brutality
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I’ve known Claudia Rankine’s name for years but, as a not reader of poetry, it’s always been a sort of back burner name for me. But every once in a while, I do decide to try some poetry (and have enjoyed collections from Joy Harjo and Jericho Brown, though I’d by no means consider myself a genre-convert or knowledgeable poetry reader). A few weeks ago, I checked this this one out to a patron at the library and that sort of inspired me to add myself to the holds list for when they brought it back. And, here we are, with my (maybe third ever?) poetry review.
There’s not really a “plot summary” or other type of synopsis to give here, like I do with fiction/nonfiction, so I guess I’ll just jump right into the review? This is a fascinating piece of nonfiction, a sort of combination or lyrical essays and more “traditional” poetry, alternating back and forth and sort of interspersed. It is, in that stylistic sense, truly unlike anything else I’ve ever read before. I also have to say that I’m glad I didn’t try to read this earlier. This is the type of poetry that I think is less accessible, or feels less accessible to people; or to not speak for others, this is the type of poetry that intimidates me as a reader. The pieces that leant more towards essay, but with a very rhythmical type writing to it, were fine. I felt like I “got” them. But the parts with a more traditional poetry presentation, short lines and broken sentences and advanced wordplay and aesthetic structure, those parts did make me react like…like I wasn’t smart enough to understand them. (The same goes, for me, very much, for the majority of the art that is interspersed throughout. But the visual dimension was interesting and unique, regardless of my personal “understanding.”) And I had to work hard within myself to read through that feeling, to accept the feeling, the message, behind the words, even if individually I didn’t necessarily follow them all. So, the reason I’m glad I waited to read Rankine, to read a collection like this, is because I needed to be objectively confident enough of myself as a reader to respect that the point is not for me to “get” everything, but to absorb and experience. And that’s growth I needed to make, a reflection on me and not the work itself, so I want to make that clear. But it is what it is, and I feel like it’s important to share, in case you too might be intimidated by poetry. I encourage you to go for it, to just keep reading, to just…sense…this work.
As for the topical aspects, phew. This is a heavy collection. Rankine looks at and dissects lived racism with a hyper focus on lingual aggressions and microaggressions and the reality of living and internalizing them. From sports to media to law enforcement brutality to interpersonal interactions, Rankine’s words illustrate absolutely the individual weight of racism in America – the scars and injury and intergenerational trauma that are inevitable for each Black person in America, and the ways that, as “citizens,” they are forced to suppress reactions to that inescapable and constant burden. The whole volume really centers around this reality, but section vii in particular, highlighting the way our country criminalizes/marginalizes being Black from natural disaster to police brutality to even the places where Black is, outwardly, lauded (sports), is a gut punch of lived racism page after page and was particularly tough to read.
Rankine’s exploration and meditation on the person-less-ness and displacement of living in a situation where you feel, you know, the cumulative of historic and current racism, but must constantly question because of gaslighting about your own experiences, is intense. Although, as I said, there were a number of individual moments where I felt like the content, the details, went over my head, I cannot deny the feelings this collection let me with and that, I believe, is the power in poetry.
“Perhaps this is how racism feels not matter the context – randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out ‘I swear to God!’ is to be called insane, crass, crazy.”
“I do not always feel colored. I feel most colored when thrown against a sharp white background.”
“...just getting along shouldn’t be an ambition.”
“Forget all that, the world says. The world’s had a lot of practice.”
“The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.”
“Appetite won’t attach you to anything no matter how depleted you feel.”
“because white men can’t / police their imagination / black men are dying”
“A feeling that feelings might be irrelevant if they point to one’s irrelevance pulls at you.”
“That time and that time and that time the outside blistered the inside of you, words outmaneuvered years, had you in a chokehold, every part roughed up, the eyes dripping. / That’s the bruise the ice in the heart was meant to ice. / To arrive like this every day for it to be like this to have so many memories and no other memory than these for as long as they can be remembered to remember this.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Violence, Police brutality, Hate crime, Gun violence, and Death