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Claudia Rankine

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Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric Kindle Edition

by Claudia Rankine (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 239 ratings

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A brilliant and unsparing examination of America in the early twenty-first century, Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely invents a new genre to confront the particular loneliness and rapacious assault on selfhood that our media have inflicted upon our lives. Fusing the lyric, the essay, and the visual, Rankine negotiates the enduring anxieties of medicated depression, race riots, divisive elections, terrorist attacks, and ongoing wars—doom scrolling through the daily news feeds that keep us glued to our screens and that have come to define our age.

First published in 2004, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is a hauntingly prescient work, one that has secured a permanent place in American literature. This new edition is presented in full color with updated visuals and text, including a new preface by the author, and matches the composition of Rankine’s best-selling and award-winning Citizen and Just Us as the first book in her acclaimed American trilogy.

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is a crucial guide to surviving a fractured and fracturing American consciousness—a book of rare and vital honesty, complexity, and presence.

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“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is a book that refuses the safe distance of being a spectator to the lives of others―as well as to ourown.”―The Rumpus --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Claudia Rankine is the author of three collections of poetry: Nothing in Nature Is Private, The End of the Alphabet, and Plot. She teaches at the University of Georgia. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C3YQZJ5P
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Graywolf Press (July 9, 2024)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 9, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 37990 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 170 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1555974074

Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,194 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #374 in Black & African American Poetry (Kindle Store)
- #1,700 in Black & African American Poetry (Books)
- #2,047 in African American Studies

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4.6 239 ratings

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4.6 out of 5

239 global ratings

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Amazon Customer

A great book of poetry-meaning nothing else like it

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2011

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So, I'm going to have to begin by prefacing that I almost never review books of poetry despite my writing and reading poetry as a career and for fun. However, this book is so amazing because it introduces a multi-genre collection that does not feel highly-stylized or pretentious. What you end up with is a masterpiece that is both smart, and sad, and lonely, and informative of what it means to be alive, truly alive. I recommend this book especially if you are someone who is interested in books that defy genres and do it well.

10 people found this helpful

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M.W.

Very moving

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2004

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I just got this book on a friend's recommendation and thought that I would glance through it before going to sleep but I couldn't put it down. I ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting and can't wait to go through it again. It is so beautifully written and complex and moving. It is not like a typical poety book in that it is structured more like essays but the essays blend together and fold into one another. It is like poetry in that the choice of words and phrases makes the work very emotionally charged and, well, I know this is a corny word, but I would say profound. It really is a work of art.

17 people found this helpful

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Ian Gazarek

Rankled

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2008

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This is as good a book of poetry as I've read in the last year. Rankine uses the prose-poem format and scatters images around the book, which I find entertains and lends itself to a certain philosophy-driven format that I like. The poetic buried in the prosaic seems to be a good way to say it. Either way, this book is 130 pages, impossibly long for most books of poetry. If this were any other style, I would have tired of it quickly, but I finished it in a few days.

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2010

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I read this book for a poetry workshop I had joined on a whim (I'm not a poet, nor am I really all that familiar with the works of modern poets), and it completely changed the way I thought of poetry. Rankine's book is beautiful, accessible and a chilling portrait of what it's like to be an American in a post-9/11 world. It's hard to describe, really, what kind of book this is -- but poetry, memoir, documentary, whatever, it's fantastic.

12 people found this helpful

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Emily Bauer

Emily Bauer - Book Review of Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2017

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Claudia Rankine forces readers to ask questions that are usually left untouched in her American Lyric Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. The words written within these pages cause us to ask what loneliness truly is, and if life and death are merely one in the same; questioning the life we live in being a long to-do list of waiting. The hardest part about grasping this poetry is the fact that it allows humans to come face to face to realizations and existential questions that we were taught do not exist, or that we should not touch. Though puzzling, trialing, and heartbreaking, the clarity given by Rankine regarding who we are, what we are supposed to accomplish and contemplate in this life, is comforting, though almost ungraspable. She asks the hard questions most don’t dare to ask while processing current events around her, like the coping with 9/11, racism, and politics. Rankine reaches conclusions that we attempt to ignore while living; that we are here to eventually die, we are still alone, and that we simply are here.
The genre that Rankin presents in Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is postmodern. She toys around with form by not writing in a formal, generic poetry style. Though consisting of mostly prose poetry, she includes photos, outlined points, conversations as scripts, boldfaced lists, informal dialogue, a long list of end notes, and lot’s of blank space. She breaks barriers in traditional poetry with her postmodern form, while still allowing the reader to feel familiar in the uncomfortable. She also tears down the curtain of simplicity within poetry by being blunt, allowing the reader to form a relationship with the narration of the text. This book is so creative that it almost does not fit in the definition of creativity.
Though Don’t Let Me Be Lonely grabs readers by the brain and twists their hearts, the narrator presented in Rankine’s poetry is merely ranting through their thoughts on paper. There is no reason at all to assume the semi-autobiographical text is telling the truth due to this venting style, however, it begs us to relate due to readers also being unable to cope, grieve, understand life, or why we are alone. The fact that Don’t Let Me Be Lonely discusses what most authors attempt to say, shows that this text is just as raw as the the ideas, events, and feelings we experience, surround ourselves with, and are forced to handle. Rankine establishes herself within this book due to her ability to use the untouched, combine it with politics, and the most fragile aspects of what it means to be human.
There is a consistency in the sense of release in Rankine’s poetry. However, in regards to form, as mentioned previously, there is not concrete style to stand on in Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. The craft presented by Rankine is complex due to the content she discusses in her lyric. There is no confusion caused due to blurry metaphors, detached analogies, or bombastic syntax. The true complexity streams from how hard it is to talk about why we are living, here, in this life, and why death seems to be something humans can never really deal with. Rankine uses this to her advantage by being to the point about these questions, and being honest to readers about how she thinks about, connects, and inhales them all; without even reaching answers or conclusions. The scattered-ness of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely’s form makes sense when comparing the messiness of the contemplating written about, and resembles how we as humans attempt to answer the capital T truth questions.
Rankine makes it evident that she is writing to all people who are human (or were human), dead or alive, meddling with loneliness, and are here. By digressing on political and social issues she has dealt with – including 9/11, airport security, racism, and even just death/murder in general – shows that Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is pointed towards humanity, and all of the issues and questions that come with it. The text offers this audience, once again, with it’s reliability of being unsure with how to deal and digest the world around them.
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine is appropriate to read at this time (and always) due to the harsh reality that we as humans will never stop wondering why we get lonely, why we ache about things that don’t directly affect us, why we sometimes pretend they do, why we avoid death, why we grieve, and why were are here. Being published in 2004, this book has a lot of reference to the events of 9/11, making the release of this book kairotic in reference to the current events it discusses. However, due to being postmodern and processing through such traumatic events within the book, Rankine has created poetry that can adapt itself to be timeless; to fit itself into the shoes of the current world’s state to attempt to figure out what this whole life thing really means. Overall, Claudia Rankine defies simple pondering of our existence, and without reaching conclusions, makes our living and being, make sense: “Why are we here if not for each other?”

10 people found this helpful

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Natalie R. Perkins

Phenomenal book

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2021

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Such amazing writing by Claudia Rankine.

One person found this helpful

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Maria

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2021

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It was as described. Great Condition.

One person found this helpful

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Mr. Books

Dark but excellent

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2014

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Great writing. A definition of the lyric essay at its best. It deals with race, 9/11, disease, and of course what it's like to be extremely lonely with just a static TV appearing throughout these pages. She's a poet of great perception and feeling. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in good writing about our times.

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Anonymous

A unique experience

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2021

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You know that shelf you have for books which are too special to go in any one genre or location? Make space for a new entry. Some of the best single sentences I've ever read are here as well as a simply unique exposition on the human experience. Reading it is an experience in itself. Don't miss it.

Mary, Mary, Mary

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on June 20, 2018

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My favorite of Rankine's books. You can see the birth of citizen here.

Emma Becker

Really good book

Reviewed in Canada on October 21, 2020

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Amazing book. Hard to read as the themes covered are dark and some topics are sensitive, but a very thoughtful read. The quality of the book was amazing, but I had a few marker marks on the top of it (nothing that ruined the reading thought).

Veeze

Amazing!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2018

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What a magnificent collection, bordering between poetry and something more. Very moving. Received book in excellent condition too.

Jens Peter Jensen

A wonderful, always surprising book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2018

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A wonderful, always surprising book. Must be read as you like, but never the way you are expected to read books...

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