The End of the Alphabet: Poems - Hardcover

Rankine, Claudia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802116345 ISBN 13: 9780802116345

Publisher: Grove Press, 1998

Synopsis

These poems — intrepid, obsessive, and erotic — tell the story of a woman's attempt to overcome despair. Claudia Rankine, whose first collection was the prize-winning Nothing in Nature is Private, creates a transfixing testimonial to a woman facing her own disease. Drawing on voices from Jane Eyre to Lady MacBeth, Rankine welds the cerebral and the spiritual, the sensual and the grotesque, courting paradox into the center of her voice.

About this title

From the Back Cover

These poems-intrepid, obsessive, and erotic-tell the story of a woman's attempt to reconcile despair. Beginning near the end and then traveling back to a time before her disquiet, The End of the Alphabet is about living despite one's alienation from the self. Claudia Rankine, whose first collection was the prize-winning Nothing in Nature is Private, creates a transfixing testimonial to a woman facing her own disease. Unflinching in detail, Rankine examines the silent moment, freezes it, listens for the dislocation of language, and writes with a bewitching ear for beauty and violence: "Her voice . . . held back / as she peeled her face off, ran her hand / over its last expression." In another poem the memory and promise of invulnerability is described: "Imagine his unshaven face, his untrimmed nails as all / the hurt this world could give."

Drawing on voices from Jane Eyre to Lady MacBeth, Rankine welds the cerebral and the spiritual, the sensual and the grotesque, courting paradox into the center of her voice. Whether writing about intimacy or alienation, what remains long after, in searing echo, is this 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.

Beyond all else, these poems will leave the reader changed, for The End of the Alphabet is the work of one of the most intriguing voices in contemporary poetry.

"It is not facts or events but the experiencing of them that counts here. And the writing never summarizes or reduces these to simples, leaving them instead in the full complexity in which they are encountered. In the amazing subtlety of even everyday contexts lie extraordinary intensities, and it is these that Claudia Rankine has discovered. In her writing, dailiness has the eloquence of the diurnal."-Lyn Hejinian

"Claudia Rankine is a powerfully impressive poet. The End of the Alphabet gives pleasure from initial A to ultimate omega." -David Lehman

Claudia Rankine was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and educated at Williams College and Columbia University. She is the author of the prize-winning collection Nothing in Nature is Private. Her work has appeared in Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and many other magazines. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York.

About the Author

Claudia Rankine is the author of five books of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Pomona College.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0802116345
• ISBN 13: 9780802116345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96