"In Nothing in Nature Is Private, her first collection, Claudia Rankine voices the crisis of a late twentieth century immigrant's daily landings into the lights of North America; the seductions and uneasy reflections that insist on a democracy of distraction, defenselessness and indifference: "Speckled particles dance/ in a path of light, so it seems/ it doesn't matter what's in the road."" "Exploring racism as a permanent part of the American landscape, Rankine descends from darkness into the unrelenting-dark-of-whiteness to see and to know for herself." "Whereas Adrienne Rich describes 'diving into the wreck," Rankine "descends" to find a darkness so complete that even the wreck is made invisible by the darkness - the whiteness, which is itself the wreck. The paradoxes of privilege are revealed in the peeled back places of Rankine's poetry. Her simultaneous access to detachment and to intimacy makes these poems both vulnerable and street tough." "Although no escape is offered from an endemic "violence" that "seems kin to our skin," Rankine's intelligence and wry, understated humor keeps the reader both included and uncomfortable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved