Triage
Claudia Rankine presents *Triage*, a genre-defying new work that combines sustained narrative, memory, criticism, essay, and full-color visuals. The book follows a turbulent, decades-long friendship between two composite characters—“the narrator” and “the theorist”—who call themselves sisters and struggle with wounded histories, shared lives, grief, love, and conflict. Their college game of collapsing to the ground whenever they meet takes on increasingly resonant meanings as the book considers personal violence, exhaustion, art, the devastation in Gaza, and the need to act amid relentless loss.
Rankine, the author of *Citizen: An American Lyric* and *Just Us*, will discuss the book with Sarah Blake and Kali D. Cyrus. Blake is a Washington-based author of poetry and novels including *The Postmistress* and *The Guest Book*. Cyrus is a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of psychiatry, practicing clinician, and public commentator on race, identity, and conflict; she also appears as an on-screen consultant on Showtime’s *Couples Therapy*.
When: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Showtime: 7:00 p.m.
Format: In-person event with a livestream option
Venue: Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008
Tickets: Free admission, with first-come, first-served seating.
Lineup: Claudia Rankine in conversation with Sarah Blake and Kali D. Cyrus
About Claudia Rankine: Rankine is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize winner, a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, a contributing editor of *Poets & Writers*, and the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. Her writing has appeared in the *Guardian*, the *New York Times Book Review*, the *New York Times Magazine*, and the *Washington Post*.
Accessibility: To request accommodations or ask about accessibility, email events@politics-prose.com, ideally at least one week before the event. The venue says it will make an effort to accommodate requests submitted up to the event time.
Related book: *Triage* is available as a $28 hardcover, published August 4, 2026.