Citizen
An American Lyric
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 2014
- Form
- Lyric poetry
- Language
- English
- Length
- Medium · 170 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendCitizenGraywolf Press, 2014The only edition, and the images are part of the book, so read it in print.
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A book-length poem in prose paragraphs, lyric fragments, essays and reproduced artworks about what racism does to a person day by day. The opening sections accumulate small encounters in the second person, a colleague's remark, a stranger taking a seat elsewhere, a friend using the wrong name, and track the exhaustion and self-division they leave. Later sections turn outward to public figures and events: Serena Williams and the officials who called her lines, Zinedine Zidane's headbutt, Hurricane Katrina, Trayvon Martin and a list of the dead that the printings keep extending.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Citizen are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
