Educated at Williams College and Columbia University, Rankine's work has appeared in many journals, including the Southern Review, AGNI, the Kenyon Review, and anthologies including On the Verge and Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature (2000). She also co-edited (with Juliana Spahr) the anthology American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. She is currently (as of 2007) working on documentary multimedia pieces with her husband, photographer John Lucas.

Winner of an Academy of American Poets fellowship, Rankine's recent work Don't Let Me Be Lonely, an experimental project, (2004) has been acclaimed for its unique blend of poetry, essay, lyric and TV imagery. About this volume, poet Robert Creeley wrote: “Claudia Rankine here manages an extraordinary melding of means to effect the most articulate and moving testament to the bleak times we live in I’ve yet seen. It’s master work in every sense, and altogether her own.”