Poet Claudia Rankine says next book will be on culture of cancer

Rankine, who has influenced Black Lives Matter, talked with artist Carrie Mae Weems about race, bodies and how surviving cancer inspired her latest work

On the courts of the US Open in Queens on Tuesday, crowds were riveted as Serena Williams played (and won) against her sister Venus. The following night in Midtown Manhattan saw another, quieter example of “black excellence”: a conversation between Carrie Mae Weems, a 2013 MacArthur fellowship recipient, and the poet Claudia Rankine, author of this year’s much-cited book Citizen: An American Lyric, on race, bodies, art and poetry.

The two were introduced by Princeton professor and poet Elizabeth Alexander, who called Weems and Rankine “our chroniclers”. The description is apt. Since it was published last fall, Citizen has become an oft-cited moral authority in the Black Lives Matter movement. Weems deftly chronicled the lives of black women in her artwork such as her photography series Kitchen Table.