Citizens

Reading poetry as a work of protest is always interesting. This isn't the first time I've read a work that was meant to be both ("South American Unicorn" was the first) and while you always have to look at the deeper meaning in poetry, you have to do that even more when the poetry is also protest.  The poetry and the media in the work really demonstrates the passions that Rankine feels about the racial inequalities people face. But because it is poetry you get a powerful emotional response that you might not get if you were reading a nonfiction book or a novel. You can just read it, you have to  feel it.

And feel it you do. There are so many unique and interesting and terrible stories that are told in this work. One of the saddest to me was on page 19 when  the therapist  tells her, “Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” before she notices who it is. That visceral moment is so powerful and really demonstrates the undue prejudice that many Black Americans face.

The work really addresses the reader because as I said above, it engages the reader in a way that a normal novel could not. Additionally, the mix media in the work, the word and the pictures, are really immersive. It is, for lack of a better work, fun to read.

If I could ask Rankine any interpretative about her work I would ask why she chose not to use titles. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to "read" the way that one work bleeds into another.

The mixed media of the work is jarring in a way, but it is also really immersive. Reading a poem about the Jim Crow street was interesting but then seeing the photo of the frankly unbelievable street sign on the otherwise idyllic street  to go along with the poem gives it a tangible nature.  And what was with that weird deer human chimera thing?! The pictures invoke emotions in a way words don't always, and even though Rankine is vividly descriptive, the picture really add a lot to the poems.

Overall the formatting of the book with the pictures and poetry was hard to read, but also really interesting to read. I really enjoyed the flow of the poems and Rankine's use of words. There's a line on page 23 "Recognition of this lack might break you apart. Or recognition might illuminate the erasure the attempted erasure trigger". I found that line so pleasing. Reading this has made me want to look at more of her works.