Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The End of the Alphabet: Poems
    The End of the Alphabet: Poems
    The End of the Alphabet: Poems
    Ebook107 pages31 minutes

    The End of the Alphabet: Poems

    By Claudia Rankine

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A “harrowing and hallucinogenic” collection of poems from author of the New York Times–bestselling National Book Award-finalist Citizen: An American Lyric (Library Journal).
     
    Claudia Rankine’s book-length poem about rising racial tensions in America, Citizen: An American Lyric, won numerous prizes, including the The National Book Critic’s Circle Award. Her new collection of poems—intrepid, obsessive, and erotic—tell the story of a woman’s attempt to reconcile herself to her own despair.
     
    Drawing on voices from Jane Eyre to Lady MacBeth, Rankine welds the cerebral and the spiritual, the sensual and the grotesque. Whether writing about intimacy or alienation, what remains long after is her singular voice—its beguiling cadence and vivid physicality. There is an unprotected quality to this writing, as if each word has been pushed out along the precipice, daring us to go with it. Rankine’s power lies in the intoxicating pull of that dare.
     
    From one of contemporary poetry’s most powerful and provocative authors, The End of the Alphabet is a work where “wits at once keen and tenacious match themselves against grief’s genius” (Boston Review).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802198532
    The End of the Alphabet: Poems
    Author

    Claudia Rankine

    Award-winning poet, critic and activist Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and she edits the "American Poets in the Twenty-First Century" series. Rankine is the recipient of the fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Guggenheim Foundation and more. Her work has garnered attention from media such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Boston Globe and the New Yorker. She is the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University.

    Related to The End of the Alphabet

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      loved best. Words I have neversaid. New sentence, at 80. Of coursenot more than his children, and their children. That goeswithout saying—but I want to lay down eachelement of love’s house. First,the hole, under—apple cellar, potato cellar,cellar to

      5 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Younger Than War

      Nov 9, 2023

      Younger Than War
      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      I’ve seen enough films where a character nickshimself shaving or maybe has a bread knife slip and the thinrun of blood is supposed to stand for some violence,for something he did and is desperateto cover up, but the truth will out—I’ve seen enough th

      2 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      The dancersIn a terribly brightLight blue gauzeRetained the mystery Skating on a lakeBlue and iceAn illusionary timeWhere poetry feels inevitable The terrific clownWho lies insideEvery blue dressDoes he see me Always a starAlways a rootHorrible auras

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      How to Live

      Feb 12, 2020

      IT IS hard to believe now, but until relatively recently there were usually just two places you could see a writer you admired: on the back flap of a book or at a public event. In the 1960s and 1970s, a very small number of writers, James Baldwin and

      9 min read

    • Article

      Fifteen Poets on Revision

      Feb 27, 2018

      After 17 drafts over two weeks, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” was completed on November 4, 1975. The poem began as notes, and evolved into a villanelle. She changed the title. She deleted words. She reached for possible rhymes. Brett Candlish Mil

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      Reactions

      Aug 17, 2022

      Reactions
      2 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Maybe every choice is in some way false,like whether to wonder or worry,or feel alive or alone in Clevelandor Memphis or any standard double queentrying to unwrap a tiny hotel soap.There’s always another one waitingin the dish like a stale communion

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      i look like someonehealing from an accidentbecause i am someonehealing from an accidentthe book of actsscales falling from saul’s eyesremembering my capacityfor stillnesshow long can i sitwithout looking awaythe fear of god escapingi desperately need

      3 min read

    • Article

      An Appreciation Of Julia De Burgos, “Farewell In Welfare Island”

      Jan 1, 2022

      It has to be from here,right this instance,my cry into the world. Life was somewhere forgottenand sought refuge in depths of tearsand sorrowsover this vast empire of solitudeand darkness. Where is the voice of freedom,freedom to laugh,to movewithout

      11 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The End of the Alphabet

    3.5/5

    14 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The End of the Alphabet - Claudia Rankine

      The End of the Alphabet

      Overview is a place

      *

      Difficult to pinpoint

      fear of self, uncoiled.

      specter unstrung. staggering stampede. Which

      sung? left the body open for the moon to break into,

      unspooling disadvantage.

      Give a thought, Jane: Did filth

      begin in conversation? drag

      the mood through before escaping the ugliness. Not to

      dwell on but overhear footsteps again

      approaching: immured,

      not immune, then dumdum

      bullet templed. rip the mind out. go ahead.

      *

      Dawn will clear though the night rains so hard. Rain

      and Jane mix and mixing up, thinking shore but hugging floor.

      What Jane must substitute for this year’s substitute

      for a mind intact? fire?

      its greediness egged on, flame after flame

      uninvolved

      but still fueling the shifting onslaught.

      Gray Jane

      emphasize otherwise, not the eyes

      but the cheek to the pillow. Bundle up and sweep

      bare the mind. Land its ooze

      at some other gate, soften

      dead wood. Sea smoke, drizzle, distance. The moment

      of elucidation snipped its tongue, its mouth water

      dried out—

      thought-damaged throat.

      *

      Remember a future

      from another dream

      and hold on. open your mouth

      close to your ear: fear

      in sanity lives. anatomy

      as dissonance,

      vertebral breaking. In spite

      of yourself.

      rising, the mercury

      reaching out

      to fever. fire. all your civilized

      sense, Jane. disabled.

      *

      Assurance collapses naturally

      as if each word were a dozen rare birds

      flown away. And gone

      elsewhere is their guaranteed landing

      though the orphaned wish

      to be happy was never withdrawn.

      Do not face assault uncoiled as loss,

      as something turned down: request or sheet. Pray

      to the dear earth, Jane, always freshly turned,

      pull the covers overhead and give

      and take the easier piece.

      to piece the mind.

      to gather on tiptoe. Having lost

      somewhere, without a name to call, help

      yourself. all I want.

      Elsewhere, things tend

      *

      Viewed in this way,

      … her voice

      at any distance cannot be

      heavier than her eyes. Listen, among the missing

      is what interrupts, stops her short

      far from here in ways that break to splinter.

      Until the sense that put her here is forced

      to look

      before remembering the towel that wiped sweat

      and wet face and dust from each mirror:

      she cleans her glasses with

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1