![]() ![]() One of them is “Define loneliness?” This question comes as a delayed response to a request made four pages earlier when a voice says, “Define loneliness.” This dialogue between two inner voices – one quietly demanding, the other possibly in shock, trying to respond – is palpably lonely. What does life mean when individual lives, erased through sanctioned hate, do not matter? Rankine raises enormous, painfully pressing questions throughout Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. She brings us into the dead center of Bush’s not caring about black people. ![]() Through images combined with the clearest of prose, Rankine explores the deep connection between Bush’s poor memory and his racist apathy. While publicly talking about the brutal killing, Bush could not recall some of the most basic facts about the crime. In the passage reprinted online as an excerpt in Boston Review, Rankine writes about James Byrd Jr., the black man who was dragged from the back of a pickup truck in Texas during George W.’s governorship. Trying to understand the tragedy of New Orleans, my mind reaches for poetry and brings me back to a passage from Claudia Rankine’s book-length prose poem Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. ![]()
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