Punishing ‘Presence’: Analysing the Prose Blocks of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen

Abstract

This essay examines how the prose blocks in Citizen: An American Lyric formally enact the dynamics of racialised visibility and erasure. Rather than merely documenting micro-aggressions, these blocks function as material structures that embody the tension between presence and marginalisation. By reconfiguring the lyric as a collective, plural mode, Rankine expands its capacity to hold dispersed narratives of racial experience. The second-person address destabilises readerly distance, implicating the reader within moments of linguistic violence. The prose block’s narrative openness allows for the accumulation of injury without resolution, mirroring the repetitive and systemic nature of racism. Visually, the block appears as black text against the white page, symbolically aligning with the racialised body positioned within dominant structures of whiteness. Ultimately, the essay argues that Rankine’s formal strategies transform the prose poem into a site where presence is asserted.