Natasha Trethewey Essays

Native Guard Analysis Natasha Trethewey is an American poet that was born in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1966 (Kuiper). She is known for many works that are about both her family’s history and the American South’s history (“Natasha Trethewey”). Trethewey often wrote about history due to the fact that she was a biracial girl growing up during one of the most racist times that America has ever gone through. One can just imagine the struggles and the sufferings a mixed girl went through during those awful

and that is exactly what Natasha Trethewey does every time she writes a poem. Natasha Trethewey is known for intertwining both the past and the future of the African American experience and turning it into a history lesson for the world to read and experience. Natasha Trethewey is a mixed race woman with an African American mother and a Caucasian father. She was born in 1966 in Gulfport, Mississippi (Mililichap, 1). According to Joseph Mililichap, Natasha Trethewey is America’s Poet Laureate

Biracial and silenced: The Cultural Influences of Natasha Trethewey’s Childhood within her Poetry Natasha Trethewey, undoubtedly one of the most well-known southern modern contemporary poets often expresses her feelings of poetry, stating, “I think there is a poem out there for everyone, to be an entrance into the poetry and a relationship with it” (LeGro). Trethewey began writing as a child, and uses poetry to convey an untold story from her culture. Trethewey was born on April 26, 1966 in Gulfport, Mississippi

Natasha Trethewey is a contemporary poet and is currently the Poet Laureate of Mississippi (Biography of Natasha Trethewey). She was actually born in Mississippi in 1966 on April 26th. Her birthdate is influential in her writing because she was born 100 years after the Confederate Memorial Day, thus, being interested in writing about the Civil War in poems. Another popular topic in her poems is race. Her mother was African American and her father was white. At this time, interracial marriages were

Natasha Trethewey was born on April 26, 1966, in Gulfport Mississippi. She received her MA, Master of Arts, in poetry at Hollins University. Later she received her MFA, Master of Fine Arts, in poetry at the University of Massachusetts. Rita Dove, a fellow poet and English professor, said “ ‘Trethewey eschews the Polaroid instant, choosing to render the unsuspecting yearnings and tremulous hopes that accompany our most private thoughts—reclaiming for us that interior life where the true self flourishes

Home Is Where The Hurt Is Is home really where the heart is? When one knows the history of their hometown, can they truly still uphold the same level of respect and admiration? The speaker in “South” by Natasha Trethewey battles this obscurity as they return to their home, Mississippi. As the speaker returns home, physical features of the state triggers reminiscence. Though these attributes are what makes home so special to the speaker, simultaneously it causes the poet to realize the meaning behind

been the source of inspiration for many literary works. “Miscegenation” by Natasha Trethewey is an autobiographical poem that expresses the difficulty that mixed-race people face in accepting their identity in a society that discriminates people who are different. That is, this poem expresses how racial discrimination can affect the identity of those people who do not identify as white or black. Besides, in this poem, Trethewey narrates her origin, as well as how her parents were victims of a society

Natasha Trethewey's "History Lesson" explores and examines the connection of personal and collective histories, particularly the intergenerational pain created by the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States. “History Lesson" employs mood, symbolism, and imagery to connect the racial discrimination endured by colored people in the past to more current times, where equality is improved and embraced. Also, while reading Trethewey's poem, she used a nostalgic tone, and an emotional mood to

Today’s Racism And Its Effects “Incident”, a poem by Natasha Trethewey, speaks on the ongoing trauma caused by racism in the United States. The poem describes a traumatic event in the speaker's life in which members of the KKK burned a cross in the front lawn of her house while she and her family hid from inside. Natasha describes the event in an almost casual tone, not describing the event straightforwardly, but instead leaving implications for the reader. While this poem was set to be during

In the poem “At Dusk” by Natasha Trethewey, the speaker's tone goes from gloomy to hopeful. In the beginning of the poem, it gives off a gloomy tones when the speaker talks about the neighbor calling for her cat, they say, “Nor how they sometimes fall short…She’s given up calling for now.” These words have a negative connotation and they connect to a gloomy tone because it shows how the neighbor is sad since she misses her cat and wants her back home. The phrases “fall short” and “given up” show

White Lies by Natasha Trethewey is a poem about a girl that struggle to find her identity. Identifying our self in society sometimes can be difficult, but having multiple racial backgrounds can make it twice as difficult. Trethewey was born in 1966 to a white father and a black mother in Mississippi where at the time it was illegal the interracial marriage. Therefore, we can infer she is the girl she refers to in the poem. In the poem, the author talks about her childhood and how difficult was for

The most meaningful word in the poem, "White Lies", written by Natasha Trethewey, is "lies", lies is the most meaningful word in the poem because the word lies supports the characters motivation, why she tells her lies, it also demonstrates her identity and how she hides it behind the lies. In the poem "White Lies" the author, Natasha Trethewey tells her readers the ways she hides behind her lies. The author told lies to make people believe she belonged to the wealthy parts of town. The author didn't

Natasha Trethewey, undoubtedly one of the most well-known southern modern contemporary poets often expresses her feelings of poetry stating, “I think there is a poem out there for everyone, to be an entrance into the poetry and a relationship with it” (CITE). Trethewey was born on April 26, 1966 in Gulfport, Mississippi. Her parents, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough and Eric Trethewey, were both prestigious workers in the community as a biracial couple. Trethewey’s childhood during the twentieth century was

the position of such a helpless somebody. The poem “Incident”, written by Natasha Trethewey, deals with a person in such a situation. The poem begins by the speaker telling the reader that the story that would now be told is told annually, emphasizing the significance of the story to “we”, presumably a family, based on clues given later in the poem. Then, using the verse “how we peered from the windows, shades drawn” (Trethewey 2), it immediately puts us in the place of the figures in the poem, by

In Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard book of poems she uses many themes and idea to narrate her life. Two of the poems included in this book: “What is evidence?” and “Southern History” she shows how abuse was hidden, documents, and she gave voice to the voiceless. Although these poems appear in two separate sections of the book they both touch on the topic of hiding abuse. “What is evidence?” speaks on her mother’s abuse being hidden from the world “Not the fleeting bruises she’d cover with makeup…”

well as the people living on this land show us the power of knowledge. Epistemological studies are important to understanding the culture and land. Knowing the history of the land allows you to understand how previous generations had lived. Natasha Trethewey in her novel Beyond Katrina, uses poetry and prose to help us better understand what the Gulf Coast Communities were like. This is extremely important from a cultural perspective, but from an epistemological side it holds great value as well

that she is white but in reality she is black. Trethewey uses a child as the speaker because with children you see purity and innocence, but this poem was written during the times that if you had darker skin you were automatically portrayed differently. And as a kid you want to be accepted and looked at the same as everyone else. This poem was written in 2000 but the tone takes places in the 60’s when interracial marriage was still not legal. Trethewey parents were illegaly married during these times

A Monument to the Dead Throughout Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey there are themes of death, grief and change. These themes are carried through the collection and are present within the entire collection. These set up the mood that this collection is ultimately about change but change for the reader as well as what happens in the collection. In “Monument” we can see all these changes through a paraphrase of the poem and the sense of elongated time from the from the form and imagery of the poem

of their surroundings through another’s perspective. Art creates a frame narrative through which the viewer can come to understand a reality that they fail to experience due to some form of privilege. In both Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Natasha Trethewey’s Thrall, the authors explore the relationship between races, trying to draw attention to and understand the systematic glorification of white people and their actions while non-whites are considered less than human. In Heart of Darkness

it is not as bad as it once was. In the poem “History Lesson” by Natasha Trethewey, the author uses mood, symbolism and imagery to describe the racial segregation coloured people faced in the past compared to more recent times, where equality is improved and celebrated. The author uses language and setting to influence the mood and meaning of the poem. She starts off the poem with the speaker looking at a “photograph” (Trethewey l. 1) of herself when she was four years old. The reader is instantly