The Provenance of Beauty

Oct. 7, 2009 -- Poet Claudia Rankine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in The Writing Program in Arts & Science, will lead a talk on the craft of poetry at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20.

In addition, Rankine will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29.

Both events — presented as part of The Writing Program's fall Reading Series — are free and open to the public and take place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall. A reception and book signing will immediately follow each.

For more information, call (314) 935-7130 or email David Schuman at dschuman@wustl.edu.

Claudia Rankine

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Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1963, Rankine is the author of four poetry collections, including Nothing in Nature is Private (1995), The End of the Alphabet (1998), PLOT (2001) and the experimental Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), which combines poetry, essays, images and travelogue.

Writing of the latter, poet Robert Creeley noted that, "Claudia Rankine here manages an extraordinary melding of means to effect the most articulate and moving testament to the bleak times we live in I've yet seen. It's master work in every sense, and altogether her own."

Rankine's most recent project is a play, The Provenance of Beauty, A South Bronx Travelogue, currently being produced by the Foundry Theatre in New York. Part of the Foundry's Distinguished New Play Development Project, the piece consists of a 90-minute bus tour through the South Bronx during which three narrators — two recorded and one live — provide a rolling commentary on the often poverty-ridden borough.

Rankine's poems have been included in several anthologies, including Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (2003), Best American Poetry 2001 and The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry (1996). In addition, Rankine is co-editor of American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language (2002, with Juliana Spahr) and American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (2007, with Lisa Sewell).

Rankine is the Henry G. Lee '37 Professorship of English at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She previously taught at Barnard College, Iowa Writer's Workshop and University of Houston. Her many honors include fellowships from the Academy of American Poetry, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation as well as the Cleveland State Poetry Prize for Nothing in Nature is Private.