Citizen: An American Lyric

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, 169 pages.

In this collection of poems and essays Rankine, former National Book award judge and 2014 NBA nominee, probes the absurd and the ordinary things that people do and say about race. She examines slights, insults, accusations, and innuendos (some very real, some inadvertant, misunderstood, or ambiguous), from her point of view and the point of view of several other narrators or voices. Racist comments overheard, ambiguous looks and responses from white colleagues and disrespect from clerks, strangers, and passersby are parsed and pondered.
Brief but compelling.