The Center for Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, in collaboration with The Salt Eaters Bookshop, is proud to host An Evening with Claudia Rankine, welcoming the incomparable author as our special guest for the 2021 Jean Burden Poetry Reading. Over the course of a career in which she has produced five books of poetry, three plays, numerous video collaborations, and several edited anthologies, Rankine’s work has become recognizable for defying literary genre and social injustice alike. Hers is a fearless and profound analysis of the racial realities of contemporary American life.

A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Rankine is the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the MacArthur Foundation. The editors of Literary Hub identified her 2014 book, Citizen: An American Lyric, as the most crucial book of the last decade; Guernica remarked that “it should be read by everyone. Citizen will open your eyes and will make you see the world anew. As only great art can.” Her latest book, Just Us: An American Conversation, was published by Graywolf Press in 2020.

Register for free, here.