Citizen Post

I think an important part of reading this as a work of protest is reading it as poetry. Rankine intended Citizen: An American Lyric to be read as poetry. On Friday, she read some of the poems from her book and would explain the story that inspired that poem. Many of her explanations of the story alone were sufficient in revoking an emotional reaction; so there she has a reason for writing Citizen the way she did. Her syntax, word choice, tense, spacing, all is selected with intent. For example, when listening to a speech, the manner in which it is given (loudly, calmly, nervously, etc.) changes how the content is perceived by the audience, even when the words are the same. The same can be said about Rankine’s writing. Reading this as a normal book as opposed to poetry (as the author intended) will have a different effect on the reader. To fully understand the author’s purpose and use of rhetoric appeals, it should be kept in mind that it is a work of protest intended to be read as poetry.

I thought how Rankine chose to address her audience was really cool, and it’s also very different from what I’ve seen before. For me, there was no clear distinction between how Rankine addressed the audience and the reader. The characters are addressed by name and by pronouns, but when she uses the word “you” it had a more versatile meaning. “You” were different people throughout Citizen, but you are always the subject of racism. This decision to put the reader in the victim’s shoes is the decision to address racism as a collective. It isn’t an accusatory me vs. you or us vs. them, it’s a desire to have the reader (regardless of race or nationality) experience and understand casual racism in America.

The visual elements in the book were very interesting, and because of the ambiguity of some of the images their interpretation could be left to the reader. That being said, I thought the back story to some of them, like the deer (pg. 19) and the sound-suit (pg. 33), were really powerful! For me, the art was even more impactful after hearing the story of the art, why she chose them, and the actual process of collecting these pieces for her book.

She made quite a few references to nature throughout her book, and although that’s not uncommon in when using literary devices to get a point a cross, I’m curious exactly what her motives were. Often times you can try and find deep literary meaning behind a quote or image, when the author meant quite the opposite or meant nothing at all. There were some moments in her talk where she would explain the something, like the image on pg.6, and it would go like this:

Photographer: Why is this road called Jim Crow?

Homeowner on street: We have a friend named James Crow

Photographer: Why didn’t you call it James Crow road?

Homeowner: He likes to go by Jim

It was so incredibly anti-climactic! This descriptions of sunsets, the breeze, and landscape are great provokers of an image, but is there some purpose behind it? That’s what I would like to know.

               It was shocking reading some of these stories, and I felt it was even more so through the eyes of an individual who was the subject to racism. You hear the stories in the news when violence is involved, or the police, or someone is injured, but you never hear about these casual slights. Yet, these remarks or actions that don’t involve physical harm can be just as shocking.