Rescheduled and Mostly Virtual NEA Big Read of ‘Citizen’ Kicks Off Sept. 24

MINERAL POINT, Wis.—Together with the Mineral Point Public Library and Mineral Point School District libraries, Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts invites the public to come together during the rescheduled NEA Big Read of “Citizen: An American Lyric” beginning Sept. 24 and running through November.

Originally scheduled for April, a month of activities had been planned around Claudia Rankine’s award-winning innovative work of poetry, prose, and art that addresses the individual and collective effects of racism. But when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the statewide shutdown this spring, the NEA Big Read was put on hold and a program of free and largely virtual events is being developed for this fall.

An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Shake Rag Alley was one of 78 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Big Read grant to host a community reading program in 2019-20.

The NEA Big Read showcases a diverse range of titles that reflect many different voices and perspectives, aiming to inspire conversation and discovery during dynamic community reading programs designed around a single selection.

“When our NEA Big Read Committee chose ‘Citizen’ from among more than 30 books for its use of poetry and art to explore the impact words have on concepts of identity and inclusion, we could not have anticipated the nationwide protests against systemic racism touched off this summer by George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis,” said Shake Rag Alley Executive Director Sara Lomasz Flesch. “Claudia Rankine’s book remains as relevant as when it was first published in 2014 and turned a spotlight on the microaggressions that compound the trauma of racism.”

Beginning Sept. 24, the NEA Big Read of “Citizen” will feature a virtual kickoff event via Zoom that will detail the planned events and ways to access and engage with the book and its themes including:

• a free virtual craft talk Sept. 26 on writing about race and free virtual Sept. 27 lecture about James Baldwin in Paris, both of which are components of the fourth annual Shake Rag Alley Writing Retreat running Sept. 25-27;
• book discussions, including a seven-week virtual Shake Rag Alley Chapter Book Club beginning Oct. 1 and the Oct. 10 in-person Driftless Poets Workshop;
• the Oct. 21 in-person Women’s Art Party focusing on a collage project reflective of artist Wangechi Mutu, whose work is featured in “Citizen;”
• youth take-and-make art kits being developed in collaboration with the Mineral Point Elementary School Library; and
• the 1 keynote panel, “Citizen Author and the American Story,” which is in a collaboration with Hypertext Magazine & Studio, a Chicago-based social justice nonprofit organization.

In preparation for the NEA Big Read, free copies of “Citizen” are available to program participants. Copies are available now at the Mineral Point Public Library and at Shake Rag Alley. Additional resources are available on the NEA Big Read page on the Shake Rag Alley website, including reading guides, video lectures and audio recordings of the Virtual Community Conversation series on systemic racism that Shake Rag Alley hosted in June-August. While not an official part of the NEA Big Read, Shake Rag Alley is pleased to support the Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums’ three-part lecture series on slavery in Platteville beginning Sept. 17. For more information and to register, see mining.jamison.museum.