Photo by John Lucas.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and the plays, Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, commissioned by the Foundry Theater and Existing Conditions (co-authored with Casey Llewellyn). Rankine is co-editor of American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century series with Wesleyan University Press and The Racial Imaginary with Fence Books. A recipient of awards and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Lannan Foundation, Poets and Writers and the National Endowments for the Arts, she teaches at Pomona College.