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The End of the Alphabet: Poems
Born in Jamaica and now making her home in the United States, Claudia Rankine writes poems that draw breath from alienation -- from her home, her body, her mind. Hailed by Robert Hass as "a fiercely gifted young poet," Claudia Rankine has welded the cerebral and the spiritual, the sensual and the grotesque. With a fierce intelligence and daunting honesty, Rankine writes about her vulnerability by looking at those closest to her. Whether writing about the man she fell in love with, or the country she's come to that is not her home, what remains long after, in searing echo, is her voice -- its beguiling cadence and vivid physicality.
- GenresPoetryLiterary Fiction
100 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 1998
28 people are currently reading
886 people want to read
About the author
Claudia Rankine
51 books1,624 followersClaudia Rankine is an American poet and playwright born in 1963 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and New York City.
Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as well as numerous video collaborations. She is also the editor of several anthologies including "The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind." In 2016, she cofounded The Racial Imaginary Institute. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry and the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
(source: Arizona State University)
Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as well as numerous video collaborations. She is also the editor of several anthologies including "The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind." In 2016, she cofounded The Racial Imaginary Institute. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry and the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
(source: Arizona State University)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
July 16, 2015
Claudia Rankine is one of the brilliant poets/essayists of our time. Her poetry can be a mix of prose poems and more classical forms and can examine race issues with a painful clarity or delve into the area of emotional life. She is the author of one of my favorite books this year, Citizen: An American Lyric, a mix of forms exploring race relations in America.
The End of the Alphabet: Poems is Rankine's second book of poetry. It is dense and painful. Having finished the book once through, I felt compelled to go back and then weave through the poems. I then read several essays/reviews about the book. The more I learned, the richer the poems (already powerful on the first two reads) became.
The language is sometimes incandescent, sometimes direct. The poems are a painful exploration of what appears to be a possibly abusive relationship as well as a miscarriage or abortion. Rankine doesn't flinch in her writing at the messy, painful parts of life. There is no easy closure or lesson to be learned. Like life itself, there are moments of beauty amidst very painful experiences.
My review doesn't do justice to the poems, it is simply a gesture towards their beauty. Even without full understanding I was enraptured by the volume.
Strongly recommended to anyone who loves language and/or is interested in lived experience.
The End of the Alphabet: Poems is Rankine's second book of poetry. It is dense and painful. Having finished the book once through, I felt compelled to go back and then weave through the poems. I then read several essays/reviews about the book. The more I learned, the richer the poems (already powerful on the first two reads) became.
The language is sometimes incandescent, sometimes direct. The poems are a painful exploration of what appears to be a possibly abusive relationship as well as a miscarriage or abortion. Rankine doesn't flinch in her writing at the messy, painful parts of life. There is no easy closure or lesson to be learned. Like life itself, there are moments of beauty amidst very painful experiences.
My review doesn't do justice to the poems, it is simply a gesture towards their beauty. Even without full understanding I was enraptured by the volume.
Strongly recommended to anyone who loves language and/or is interested in lived experience.
December 31, 2022
Challenging poems and largely left me confused. I prefer Rankine's later work.
August 8, 2022
A chaos of typeset letters are on the ground; the poetry begins with the cover art.
The End of the Alphabet: Poems by Claudia Rankine is an extraordinary work that you will want to read through at least twice. Rankine uses techniques of excellent narrative fiction to deliver an intense portrait of the slow devolution of a relationship that needed to end, but it’s all poetry.
Each poem leads onto the next, and together, they are a narrative whole. The poetry is dense and ominous, its story spilling into horror and the grotesque before releasing us from its grip at the end where closure is not simple, but it is truthful and ongoing.
She is deft at obscuring her meaning, outright signaling that she’s doing that without giving her plot away until the moment she intends, a slow dawning understanding that deepens all that went before, a page or two, a poem or two, later.
She drops the word fossil into a line early on in the poems. By the end of the book, the metaphor of it is still unwinding, the whole volume, a spiral of time and event, like an ammonite relic, something long gone and solidly present.
Claudia Rankine was born in Jamaica in 1963. She is a celebrated multi-award winning American poet, essayist, and playwright. The End of the Alphabet was her 2nd published collection of poems.
The End of the Alphabet: Poems by Claudia Rankine is an extraordinary work that you will want to read through at least twice. Rankine uses techniques of excellent narrative fiction to deliver an intense portrait of the slow devolution of a relationship that needed to end, but it’s all poetry.
Remember a future
from another dream
and hold on.
‘Overview is a place’
Claudia Rankine / The End of the Alphabet
Each poem leads onto the next, and together, they are a narrative whole. The poetry is dense and ominous, its story spilling into horror and the grotesque before releasing us from its grip at the end where closure is not simple, but it is truthful and ongoing.
Assurance collapses naturally
as if each word were a dozen rare birds
flown away. And gone
elsewhere is their guaranteed landing.
‘Overview is a place’
Claudia Rankine / The End of the Alphabet
She is deft at obscuring her meaning, outright signaling that she’s doing that without giving her plot away until the moment she intends, a slow dawning understanding that deepens all that went before, a page or two, a poem or two, later.
Unhyphen the self from the part that cannot leave the cruelty of this. For it is
better to curse, Shut up, Shut up, before understanding sets in.
‘Toward biography’
Claudia Rankine / The End of the Alphabet
She drops the word fossil into a line early on in the poems. By the end of the book, the metaphor of it is still unwinding, the whole volume, a spiral of time and event, like an ammonite relic, something long gone and solidly present.
Claudia Rankine was born in Jamaica in 1963. She is a celebrated multi-award winning American poet, essayist, and playwright. The End of the Alphabet was her 2nd published collection of poems.
March 11, 2020
Rankine never ceases to impress me. THE END OF THE ALPHABET is a complex, difficult read that requires more than one pass. The poetry is haunting, sensual, tragic and beautiful in its description of alienation and what it means to be alive--or rather dead while alive. I will continue to reread these poems in hopes of better understanding her words. Rankine belongs in the ranks of poets such as Lowell and Plath. The title perfectly represents the decay of body, life, and words that is present in the book. A masterpiece!
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June 2, 2017Idk I can't really understand poetry all the time so I won't rate this book but ogle this phrase: "the thickened bones of the street"
Or this one: "the tongue is a muscle just strolling along."
Me: nice
Or this one: "the tongue is a muscle just strolling along."
Me: nice
August 25, 2020
The day I am at peace I will have achieved
a kind of peace even I know suggests I am crazy.
But, as it will be how I survive, I will not feel so.
More poems that beg to be read aloud.
February 8, 2022
I'm not brilliant at reviewing poetry. I can only tell you how it makes me feel. This book is like walking over beautiful glittering glass. So jagged and painful and enticing. Rankine pulled me onto the floor to roll around in the squalor that is despair--the ugliness, the neverendingness, the "too much" of despair.
I never figured out a significant incident that triggered the grief, and I was never sure what was trigger and what was result. The effect was the same--as it is with the dark dirty hole of emptiness.
These/this poem grabs the reader by the throat and drags them along for the topsy turvy ride and never lets up. Yet somehow at the end of the 100 pages, I gasped for breath and felt a little lighter.
I never figured out a significant incident that triggered the grief, and I was never sure what was trigger and what was result. The effect was the same--as it is with the dark dirty hole of emptiness.
These/this poem grabs the reader by the throat and drags them along for the topsy turvy ride and never lets up. Yet somehow at the end of the 100 pages, I gasped for breath and felt a little lighter.
March 25, 2022
I had a lump in my throat the whole time. Expansive yet intimate. Body, miscarriage, possession. Rankine's poetry is, as ever, powerfully affecting.
(Unsure if I noticed/was drawn to this especially because I'm also reading Barthes, but the proliferation of parentheses here, asides spilling into asides, was fascinating.)
(Unsure if I noticed/was drawn to this especially because I'm also reading Barthes, but the proliferation of parentheses here, asides spilling into asides, was fascinating.)
May 22, 2021
I would have abandoned this at the halfway point were it not so slim and quick a read. I just never connected with any of it in any way. For me, somehow the formalism and innovation rendered the emotional almost null and the language entered my eyes as lines and words only to fall out my ears as mere letters.
I was blown away by both Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. If you’re new to Rankine, I would highly recommend these.
I was blown away by both Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. If you’re new to Rankine, I would highly recommend these.
December 4, 2019
A brilliant piece of writing in the school of difficult poetry. This is poetry about the dissolution of a love affair. Though it spans a range of emotions what is most startling and original about this writing is Rankine's language and use of metaphor.
October 14, 2018
I love these poems. This stays by my bed.
July 9, 2020
i feel exhausted from this. the good kind of course. worth a hundred more re reading just to bask in the intricate and complex, first rate poems.
December 9, 2021
This collection is a relentless but beautiful journey through despair and back again.
August 23, 2023
I’d do anything to study w Claudia Rankine. ANYTHING!!! (Like, write a 2-pg personal statement and produce a halfway decent writing sample)
February 18, 2022
“how far we can enter into hell and still sit down for Sunday dinner.”
De urgentie druipt van elk woord in deze bundel. Complexiteit trouwens ook, maar dat kenmerkt volgens mij ook haar poging om gevoel in taal om te zetten. In tegenstelling tot de meeste dichters, die volgens mij toch vooral mooie zinnen proberen te vormen die zo dicht mogelijk in de buurt komen van iets dat net raakt aan hun gevoel, weigert Rankine ‘formeel’ of ‘kloppend’ taalgebruik wanneer dat betekent dat ze daar niet haar exacte en volledige emotie in kan uiten. Rankine lijkt geen genoegen te willen nemen met ‘gangbaar’ taalgebruik waarmee je gevoel vaak slechts lijkt te kunnen benaderen maar nooit echt te raken. Juist door precies te zeggen wat ze wil, en de complexiteit en het gebrek door te voeren in haar taalgebruik, werkt het.
(She would not see it if she had been disgraced she would not
see she would not put it in front she
would not have it put in front she said do not bring it to me
if she has been disgraced
she said remind me of something else
an actress or a place something
juice in the islands of Langerhans the four-legged beast
nosing a crotch she said remind me of anything
she would not see if she had been disgraced
she said never get into the skin of someone you won’t know
she said homiletic over the osso buco she said
listen to me disgraced do not put it do not bring it to me.
*
De urgentie druipt van elk woord in deze bundel. Complexiteit trouwens ook, maar dat kenmerkt volgens mij ook haar poging om gevoel in taal om te zetten. In tegenstelling tot de meeste dichters, die volgens mij toch vooral mooie zinnen proberen te vormen die zo dicht mogelijk in de buurt komen van iets dat net raakt aan hun gevoel, weigert Rankine ‘formeel’ of ‘kloppend’ taalgebruik wanneer dat betekent dat ze daar niet haar exacte en volledige emotie in kan uiten. Rankine lijkt geen genoegen te willen nemen met ‘gangbaar’ taalgebruik waarmee je gevoel vaak slechts lijkt te kunnen benaderen maar nooit echt te raken. Juist door precies te zeggen wat ze wil, en de complexiteit en het gebrek door te voeren in haar taalgebruik, werkt het.
(She would not see it if she had been disgraced she would not
see she would not put it in front she
would not have it put in front she said do not bring it to me
if she has been disgraced
she said remind me of something else
an actress or a place something
juice in the islands of Langerhans the four-legged beast
nosing a crotch she said remind me of anything
she would not see if she had been disgraced
she said never get into the skin of someone you won’t know
she said homiletic over the osso buco she said
listen to me disgraced do not put it do not bring it to me.
*
February 5, 2021
3.5 Stars
These poems are gorgeously and vividly written with a rhythm that I find especially appealing and interesting. But I also find them to be very dense. Rankin’s poems are the kind you have to sit with and sometimes reread stanzas and portions several times to even begin to penetrate through to the meaning. You have to do some work for these but it’s worth it. I am never sure if poems should be like song lyrics- able to mean many things, maybe something different to each reader. Or whether I need to shove my own connections aside and dig and try to understand what the author intended. I suppose that’s up to every reader and also that you can have both. But I say this because I am not so sure I always understood exactly what was being communicated in every line. I used to find poetry like this very intimidating and while I’ve always loved to read and write poetry, that intimidation put me off for awhile. So this is not a collection I would recommend to someone new to reading poetry or if you know already that dense, more opaque work isn’t your thing. I think any reader could find beauty, skill, talent in these though. Rankin is stunningly descriptive and astmospheric. Even if you are unsure of the broader meaning to the poem there’s so many incredible word pictures painted with each line, sometimes in only the rhythm of a few words at a time.
I’m by no means a poetry expert or anywhere near as widely read as I’d like to be but I found her work incomparable. Her style is one all her own. And I will add that while I read this one digitally (available on Hoopla, a format where it your library offers the service, everyone has access to the same collection so it doesn’t, as far as I’m aware, vary from one library to the next.) her style is one that really needs to be read as printed. She uses and experiments a lot with the physical structure on the page. Nothing too extreme. But I always feel poets who do a lot of that need to be read as intended and this is the extreme flaw of ebooks. I normally prefer ebooks and find them easier to read for my specific needs and brain but not here. If you can access a physical copy, do.
So why not four or even five stars? There’s a lot of different aspects of her style I like but there’s something about the way those aspects- and one I really don’t like- come together that leaves me meh. I often loved parts of poems and found myself asking what the point was or downright bored at other parts and think many of these would be so much better, tighter, and less opaque if they were shorter. I guess also as much as I’m a fan- write this way myself- of the use of sentence fragments or several powerful words alone to evoke a feeling, there’s something about how Rankine does this almost exclusively yet ventures from the descriptive and emotional to everyday details like going to a restaurant and what they ordered or a conversation at a bar, (so from the vague to the specific), with a style that just doesn’t lend well to it. I’m not particularly a fan of people who write those kinds of details into poems most of the time (unless you really surprise me with it. It’s got to mean something.) I never quite felt these meant anything to anyone but were more written in for a specific person to recognize and see, not for broader consumption. And that also seemed to be an issue with some of the poems in general, maybe overly specific in parts to make them unrelatable, yet at other times she was so vague and dense and difficult that I found it hard to relate.
And as much as I can appreciate having to work to “get” a poem I feel as if the pay off wasn’t there much of the time to make it worth it for me. There’s lots of beauty and talent here, some incredible, evocative lines, and stanzas I did see, feel, and connect to on a personal level and maybe poetry is all a matter of taste. For me, I’ve read many far better collections, that clicked with me and my tastes more. This is also an earlier work by Ms. Rankine, written 16 years before her critically acclaimed Citizen: An American Lyric (something I confess I’ve not yet read). I cannot see this collection appealing in such a broad way and assume- and would even expect from the clearly very evident talent- that she’s only gotten much better with time and experience. I would absolutely read her work again and plan to. I would probably only recommend this one to true poetry lovers and would definitely not hand it to someone who is just starting to get into poetry or wants to explore it after being convinced it wasn’t for them.
Personally, I especially liked the poems “Hunger to the table”, “In this sense, beyond” and loved “Residual in the hour”. And I would be remiss not to share a few of those gorgeous, favorite lines of mine. So here were a few that especially stood out to me-
“At first, embarrassed, lumbering beneath the formal poses, the well-cuffed, the combed hairs, the could-not-be-faulted statement of ease, though utterly and depleted, closing the door behind, for in this, the distance—wanting and the body losing, all the time losing, beforehand, inside.”
These poems are gorgeously and vividly written with a rhythm that I find especially appealing and interesting. But I also find them to be very dense. Rankin’s poems are the kind you have to sit with and sometimes reread stanzas and portions several times to even begin to penetrate through to the meaning. You have to do some work for these but it’s worth it. I am never sure if poems should be like song lyrics- able to mean many things, maybe something different to each reader. Or whether I need to shove my own connections aside and dig and try to understand what the author intended. I suppose that’s up to every reader and also that you can have both. But I say this because I am not so sure I always understood exactly what was being communicated in every line. I used to find poetry like this very intimidating and while I’ve always loved to read and write poetry, that intimidation put me off for awhile. So this is not a collection I would recommend to someone new to reading poetry or if you know already that dense, more opaque work isn’t your thing. I think any reader could find beauty, skill, talent in these though. Rankin is stunningly descriptive and astmospheric. Even if you are unsure of the broader meaning to the poem there’s so many incredible word pictures painted with each line, sometimes in only the rhythm of a few words at a time.
I’m by no means a poetry expert or anywhere near as widely read as I’d like to be but I found her work incomparable. Her style is one all her own. And I will add that while I read this one digitally (available on Hoopla, a format where it your library offers the service, everyone has access to the same collection so it doesn’t, as far as I’m aware, vary from one library to the next.) her style is one that really needs to be read as printed. She uses and experiments a lot with the physical structure on the page. Nothing too extreme. But I always feel poets who do a lot of that need to be read as intended and this is the extreme flaw of ebooks. I normally prefer ebooks and find them easier to read for my specific needs and brain but not here. If you can access a physical copy, do.
So why not four or even five stars? There’s a lot of different aspects of her style I like but there’s something about the way those aspects- and one I really don’t like- come together that leaves me meh. I often loved parts of poems and found myself asking what the point was or downright bored at other parts and think many of these would be so much better, tighter, and less opaque if they were shorter. I guess also as much as I’m a fan- write this way myself- of the use of sentence fragments or several powerful words alone to evoke a feeling, there’s something about how Rankine does this almost exclusively yet ventures from the descriptive and emotional to everyday details like going to a restaurant and what they ordered or a conversation at a bar, (so from the vague to the specific), with a style that just doesn’t lend well to it. I’m not particularly a fan of people who write those kinds of details into poems most of the time (unless you really surprise me with it. It’s got to mean something.) I never quite felt these meant anything to anyone but were more written in for a specific person to recognize and see, not for broader consumption. And that also seemed to be an issue with some of the poems in general, maybe overly specific in parts to make them unrelatable, yet at other times she was so vague and dense and difficult that I found it hard to relate.
And as much as I can appreciate having to work to “get” a poem I feel as if the pay off wasn’t there much of the time to make it worth it for me. There’s lots of beauty and talent here, some incredible, evocative lines, and stanzas I did see, feel, and connect to on a personal level and maybe poetry is all a matter of taste. For me, I’ve read many far better collections, that clicked with me and my tastes more. This is also an earlier work by Ms. Rankine, written 16 years before her critically acclaimed Citizen: An American Lyric (something I confess I’ve not yet read). I cannot see this collection appealing in such a broad way and assume- and would even expect from the clearly very evident talent- that she’s only gotten much better with time and experience. I would absolutely read her work again and plan to. I would probably only recommend this one to true poetry lovers and would definitely not hand it to someone who is just starting to get into poetry or wants to explore it after being convinced it wasn’t for them.
Personally, I especially liked the poems “Hunger to the table”, “In this sense, beyond” and loved “Residual in the hour”. And I would be remiss not to share a few of those gorgeous, favorite lines of mine. So here were a few that especially stood out to me-
“Gnaw. Zigzag. The end of the alphabet buckling floors”
“Lower the lids and the mind swims out into what is not madness, and still the body feels small
against such flooding hurled through the dull and certain dawn.
You, you are defeat composed.”
“The tongue is a muscle
simply strolling along.”
“Sunday. Monday … Friday they rescued each other. The one or the other pried open the parentheses. Love, the direction”
“The day I am at peace I will have achieved a kind of peace even I know suggests I am crazy.
But, as it will be how I survive, I will not feel so.”
May 15, 2018
A strange, alienating, vaguely narrative collection that shifts from hesitant intimacy to long cryptic passages. Though such alienation would be better explored in
Don't Let Me Be Lonely, the dense, alternately musical and dissonant poetry that explores Jane's desolation ably counters readers who accuse Rankine of writing dry criticism and lacking poetic voice.
Don't Let Me Be Lonely, the dense, alternately musical and dissonant poetry that explores Jane's desolation ably counters readers who accuse Rankine of writing dry criticism and lacking poetic voice.
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February 26, 2023Grueling. Usually I read a poetry collection twice. This time I can’t bring myself to.
December 15, 2020
I found these poems to be rather lifeless, honestly.
March 15, 2009
I am interested in what is the most accurate way of revealing an emotionally charged subject. Here Rankine suffers through a relationship, a pregnancy, and a separation. I wonder what is the most honest way of telling a story. This narrative arc can only be gleaned through various hints brought into the poems, where they seem to indulge narrative for a moment, does this mean the poet is trying to conceal something from her reader? Or is she merely requiring her reader to think of emotional trauma differently. Other books create a similar dilemma, but I think the Rankine reveals itself as a significant lyric committed to making a reader understand, just differently understood.
March 10, 2025
3.75
Claudia Rankine’s The End of the Alphabet is the kind of poetry collection that lingers—beautiful, haunting, and deeply introspective. The recurring imagery is stunning, weaving themes of loss, identity, and the human experience into something rich and layered in a mesmerizing cyclicality. Rankine’s writing is both precise and expansive, challenging the reader to sit with discomfort.
That said, I won’t lie—this one can be a bit cerebral. The poetry is captivating, but sometimes it feels dense, almost like it needs to be taken in small doses rather than binged in one sitting (even in terms of lines!). Some poems hit you right in the gut, while others are an exercise in close reading techniques. But honestly? That’s part of what makes it such an intriguing read.
If you’re into poetry that pushes boundaries and makes you work a little, The End of the Alphabet is definitely worth picking up. Just be prepared to really sit with it, reflect, and meditate on it to fully sink into its brilliance.
Comp titles: The Black Maria by Aracelis Girmay, Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix, Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis
Claudia Rankine’s The End of the Alphabet is the kind of poetry collection that lingers—beautiful, haunting, and deeply introspective. The recurring imagery is stunning, weaving themes of loss, identity, and the human experience into something rich and layered in a mesmerizing cyclicality. Rankine’s writing is both precise and expansive, challenging the reader to sit with discomfort.
That said, I won’t lie—this one can be a bit cerebral. The poetry is captivating, but sometimes it feels dense, almost like it needs to be taken in small doses rather than binged in one sitting (even in terms of lines!). Some poems hit you right in the gut, while others are an exercise in close reading techniques. But honestly? That’s part of what makes it such an intriguing read.
If you’re into poetry that pushes boundaries and makes you work a little, The End of the Alphabet is definitely worth picking up. Just be prepared to really sit with it, reflect, and meditate on it to fully sink into its brilliance.
Comp titles: The Black Maria by Aracelis Girmay, Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix, Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis
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May 7, 2023I was introduced to Claudia Rankine with her text Citizens nearly three years ago in a poetry course taught by Dr. Stevie Edwards (thank you Dr. Edwards if you see this!!). This is the first I have picked up Rankine since then, but I am so glad I did.
This work is the poetry of how to save your own life. It is the story that life both goes on and it does’t. It is Rankine’s brutal, embodied experience of beauty and survival. Her words take you by the hand and forcefully pull you along with her, to see the world as she sees it, in curiosity and clarity, for all its shit and pain, and for all the cracks in the sidewalk where the flowers grow.
“Clearly, you know,
so say, This earth untouched is ruptured enough to grieve.”
“We live through, survive
without regard for the self. Forgiving
each day insisting it be forgiven, thinking
our lives umbilical, tied up with living with how far
we can enter into hell and still sit down for Sunday dinner.”
“…to where okay
masquerades as the first word
because reason forced its pieces into a furious fit
to cultivate dumbness…”
This work is the poetry of how to save your own life. It is the story that life both goes on and it does’t. It is Rankine’s brutal, embodied experience of beauty and survival. Her words take you by the hand and forcefully pull you along with her, to see the world as she sees it, in curiosity and clarity, for all its shit and pain, and for all the cracks in the sidewalk where the flowers grow.
“Clearly, you know,
so say, This earth untouched is ruptured enough to grieve.”
“We live through, survive
without regard for the self. Forgiving
each day insisting it be forgiven, thinking
our lives umbilical, tied up with living with how far
we can enter into hell and still sit down for Sunday dinner.”
“…to where okay
masquerades as the first word
because reason forced its pieces into a furious fit
to cultivate dumbness…”
January 22, 2025
“Difficult to pinpoint / fear of self, uncoiled.” Claudia Rankine’s second book of poetry, The End of the Alphabet, is quite palpably different in tone and style to her later, more famous work (eg Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely), though her work is as always characterised by, as Calvin Bedient notes, a polarity between self-revulsion and rage at the world around us. I adore her occasional and tenuous levity: “Laughter has the house to itself. It wraps to hide / expectation elsewhere.” Throughout the book, Rankine uses many open parentheses, thoughts unclosed and meandering, expanding — until the final poem, which features two loosely closed parentheses; tied in with her focus on the future, this renders Rankine’s work as hopeful and essential as it’s ever been: “Remember a future / from another dream / and hold on, open your mouth”.
April 30, 2023
This book left me shocked. There were so many topics explored, ( Social, psychological, and emotional) I couldn’t help but feel pulled to this book. Although I felt a little lost at times, once I read the poems twice or more times I would get it. Nevertheless, that’s what I loved about this book, it was an experience that I enjoyed going through. The figurative language in this book was beautiful, to say the least. What an amazing collection of experiences and stories. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys critical questions such as What makes you? Who you are? And what do you represent?… I loved this book, one of my favorites no doubt.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2023
This book was an eye-opener for me because of many reasons including what being alive is, and what it means to be alive. I really enjoyed reading this book because of the themes explored in this book. And it definitely left me thinking about those topics. Like I said before I really enjoyed reading this book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially my friends. I think this book is a great experience to go through.
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April 11, 2021I am not going to rate this in stars because I did not understand it (I have vaccine brain fog/headaches so I will blame myself for that one). Overall, the only things I can really share is that these poems were long and dense, intellectually difficult, and did not really feel any emotions come out of the writing.
February 6, 2019
It's not easy reading but this woman packs a punch. Wow.
August 18, 2021
SO powerful. As someone who has come from another country, the feeling of isolation and alienation really hit me. What a brilliant poet.
"In memory, remorse wraps the self" - this is perfect
"In memory, remorse wraps the self" - this is perfect
March 30, 2025
I prefer Rankine’s prose poetry more but an interesting enough collection of poetry
April 4, 2025
Pieces and parts, but I gave an additional star since she was attached to Pomona College. Chirp.
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