As an update to this blog post, here is a link to the video of the event.

We are immensely honored to welcome poet and scholar Claudia Rankine (author of Citizen: An American Lyric, the recipient of this year’s National Book Critics Circle Award) to Houghton Library next week. Rankine will read from Citizen and document the process involved in selecting, “doctoring,” and integrating the artworks throughout the collection. The event will be introduced by Jorie Graham.

“The Making of Citizen” is the final event in the Woodberry Poetry Room’s 2014-2015 season and the inaugural event in this year’s LITFest. The event is sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room and co-sponsored by the Harvard Department of English and LITFest.

Detail from Glenn Ligon’s “Untitled [I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against a Sharp White Background]” 1990-91.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to artists David Hammons (“In the Hood,” 1993) and Glenn Ligon, whose artworks appear in this post and in Citizen.

Edison Newman Room
Houghton Library
Free and open to the public
Seating is limited. Please arrive early.