Citizen excerpt

The excerpt from Citizen

The excerpt from Citizen is a prose poem on social inequality in America. It contains many terms that are difficult to understand when reading, as well as those that pique one’s curiosity and make one want to keep reading.

Perplexing Terms

Among the terms that I find perplexing were the following: where the writer claims that his brothers have been imprisoned while still saying that a prison is a location inaccessible to humans (Rankine 89). The terms are perplexing when they refer to the brothers who are imprisoned but still referring to the prison as an inaccessible location. If the brothers ended up in jail, that suggests they went there. Due to these conflicting sentences, there is some confusion arising. The poem states that it is the sky that makes his brother complete and also talks about the rain falling (Rankine 90). The meaning of the sentence is not clear when it says the sky completes his brother.

Intriguing Sentences

The sentences that intrigued me while reading also includes the following; since an individual fits a given description it does not matter whether the person is in the wrong, he is considered a criminal (Rankine 105). This sentence is interesting in the way it plays with words. Its meaning is also interesting. Just because the person fits the description, the police consider him as a criminal. When the partners go to watch the film called ’The House, We Live in’ the neighbor call him (Rankine 15). It is compelling because there is irony present in the sentence. It is interesting that the poem itself is talking about racial discrimination and the film they are going to watch also talks about racial injustices taking place in America. The narrator also talks about a group of people who gathers behind her in a good way. He describes them as newly found relatives (Rankine 17). It is interesting because the narrator refers to the appearance of the men as beautiful yet she is disgusted by it. It is interesting that the man knocks the narrator’s son but does not apologize and when she tries to face him a group of people gathers behind her. The group of people is those who are against the woman.

Work cited

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2014. Internet resource.