Born in Kingston, Jamaica, poet Claudia Rankine earned a BA at Williams College and an MFA at Columbia University.
Rankine has published several collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, and winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry; Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004); and Nothing in Nature is Private (1994), which won the Cleveland State Poetry Prize.