Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine is a highly acclaimed American poet and playwright, born in 1963 in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in New York City. She is widely recognized for her profound and thought-provoking work, which often explores themes of race, identity, and culture. Rankine has published five collections of poetry, including the groundbreaking "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely." In addition to her poetry, she has authored two plays, including "The White Card" and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue." Rankine is also an accomplished editor, having compiled several anthologies, most notably "The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind."

In 2016, Rankine co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute, a collaborative organization that aims to expand and reimagine the ways in which race is represented and understood in society. Throughout her illustrious career, Rankine has received numerous awards and accolades for her contributions to literature and the arts. These include the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment of the Arts. Furthermore, Rankine is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and currently serves as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. She resides in New Haven, Connecticut.