Poet Claudia Rankine to Read Her Work at UWM

MILWAUKEE - Jamaican poet Claudia Rankine, whose work has been described by critics as a "mastery of linguistic art," will read from her books on Thursday, Oct. 17 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

Rankine's appearance is at 7:30 p.m. in Room 131 of Merrill Hall, 2512 E. Hartford Ave.

Born in Kingston, Rankine has authored three books of poetry: "Nothing in Nature Is Private" (1995) for which she received the Cleveland State Poetry Prize, "The End of the Alphabet" (1998), and "Plot" (2001). Her work has appeared in the Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, Verse, and many other publications.

In addition, she is included in several anthologies including "Best American Poetry," and won the 1993 Award for Literary Excellence in an Emerging Writer from The Kenyan Review.

"Rankine is a sophisticated and innovative writer whose intelligence is in evidence on every page," writes Arielle Greenberg in a review. "She is certainly among the most talented younger poets writing today...."

Her poetry has been described as "a kind of high-wire act in which the acrobat must invent
the wire with each succeeding step. Alert to paradox in both her characters and language, she creates a world of beauty and violence through breaking down the poetic form and then building it back up again."

Rankine received her bachelor's degree at Williams College and her MFA at Columbia University. She teaches at Barnard College in New York, where she is director of Women Poets. During this academic year, she is a visiting poet at the University of Iowa.

She is the first of two visiting writers to read at UWM this fall in a series hosted by the school's Creative Writing Program and co-sponsored with the English Department and the College of Letters and Science. Fiction writer Adam Johnson will give a reading on Thursday, Nov. 14.

The readings are free and open to the public.

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