Members of CC’s incoming Class of 2021 and transfer students are reading “Citizen: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine as part of Colorado College’s Common Book Read program.

Rankine was on campus in February as the Block 6 First Mondays speaker and delivered the capstone address during New Student Orientation. She is the author of five collections of poetry, two plays, numerous video collaborations, and the editor of several anthologies.

“Citizen” recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, while others are intentional offensives. Rankine writes that the cumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, to perform, and to stay alive.

The Common Book Read Program is designed to provide first-year and transfer students with a common intellectual experience to stimulate discussion and critical thinking, and encourage a sense of community. The common reading selection rotates between the academic divisions — natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities — with this year’s selection, chosen by the faculty First-Year Experience Committee, drawn from the humanities.