Poet Claudia Rankine reading tonight

National Book Award finalist and former University of Georgia faculty member Claudia Rankine will read from her work Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. at Ciné, 234 W. Hancock Ave. The event, sponsored by the UGA Creative Writing Program in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is free and open to the public.

The reading is part of VOX, a series organized and hosted by graduate students in creative writing with additional organizational support from Avid Bookshop's Avid Reading Series. Here's an excerpt from [“A father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life...”] BY CLAUDIA RANKINE

A father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life is the amount of time he has spent worrying about it.

   Worry 1. A dog’s action of biting and shaking an animal so as to injure or kill it, spec., a hound’s worrying of its quarry; an instance of this. 2. A state or feeling of mental unease or anxiety regarding or arising from one’s cares or responsibilities, uncertainty about the future, fear of failure, etc.; anxious concern, anxiety. Also, an instance or cause of this.

   It achieved nothing, all his worrying. Things worked out or they didn’t work out and now here he was, an old man, an old man who each year of his life bit or shook doubt as if to injure if not to kill, an old man with a good-looking son who resembles his deceased mother. It is uncanny how she rests there, as plain as day, in their boy's face.

Town and gown wins again. Welcome back to Athens, Ms. Rankine, and great job CWP for bringing in this wonderful poet.