Instead, it uses the recollections and musings of the narrator, each of them their own scene, to paint a picture of American identity as Rankine understands it in 2004. The book does not contain a specific narrative arc. The notion that through poetry we “mobilize our notion of the responsibility to one another in a social space.” (143) Myung Mi KimĪfter doing this writing activity my students were better able to articulate what they thought Rankine’s aim was, and how she is developing the concept of loneliness.In Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Rankine uses a first-person speaker, which gives the work the feeling of an internal monologue. “And most of all beware, even in thought, of assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a dancing bear…” –Aime Cesaire On the last day of discussion, I had the students do a free write based on the book’ s epigraph and a quote that Rankine gives from Myung Mi Kim: Rankine moves between first, second, and third person pretty seamlessly. I also call their attention to the slippage of the pronouns and what this slippage might be accomplishing. I always ask them what they think the television screens are doing (and for the ambitious I ask if they can make a connection between the structure the TVs provide and Rankine’s discussion of parataxis, a term which they will need defined). I also find it useful to discuss the book’s structure the students are usually interested in the visual elements of the text. I also call attention to her subtitle, and ask how a lyric is different from something else, like a memoir or an anthem for example. On the first day of discussion, I spend a good amount of time asking the students what genre this text would fall into.

The notes are extremely informative and engaging, and I find it useful to alert my students to those notes when assigning the reading.

In Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Rankine includes copious endnotes where she explains almost all of her allusions. My students were excited to see how literature could engage current issues such as police violence and race in American society. I taught Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely and excerpts from Citizen in conjunction with Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and an interview with Rankine from Guernica (a week total).

Dont let me be lonely claudia rankine