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Citizen

An American Lyric
Aug 06, 2015SchroederTribe rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Incredibly beautiful and savage and heartbreaking. Somehow her poets voice immerses the reader into the injustice and the harm - not just John Henryism but PTSD that is the African American experience in an honest way. Taking the reader by the hand to bear witness. On Serena: "Perhaps the committee's decision is only about context, though context is not meaning. It is a public event being watched in homes across the world. In any case, it is difficult not to think that if Sernea lost context by abandoning all rules of civility, it coule b because her body, trapped in racial imaginary, trapped in disbelief --code for being black in America -- is being governed not by the tennis match she is participating in but by a collapsed relationship that had promised to play by the rules. Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context --randomly the rules everyone else gets to play out "I swear to GOD!" is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship. (30)