Eman+Srouji-+Natasha+Trethewey

"Pastoral"
 * Wiki Post 2**

In the dream, I am with the Fugitive Poets. We’re gathered for a photograph. Behind us, the skyline of Atlanta hidden by the photographer’s backdrop -- a lush pasture, green, full of soft-eyed cows lowing, a chant that sounds like //no, no. Yes,// I say to the glass of bourbon I’m offered. We’re lining up now -- Robert Penn Warren, his voice just audible above the drone of bulldozers, telling us where to stand. //Say “race,”// the photographer croons. I’m in blackface again when the flash freezes us. //My father’s white,// I tell them, //and rural.// //You don’t hate the South?// they ask. //You don’t hate it?//

For this poem, I had to do a little research to truly figure it out. When I read it, I thought who is Robert Penn Warren? When I began to research him, I discovered that he was a poet who was part of the Fugitive Poets, a group of southern poets at Vanderbilt who “were advocates of the rural Southern agrarian tradition and based their poetry and critical perspective on classical aesthetic ideals.” Knowing all of this made a lot more sense to me because she mentions the Fugitive Poets in the first sentence. These men that were apart of this group valued the south and it’s agrarian lifestyle. This is important in the poem because Natasha Trethewey grew up in the south. She is bi-racial, which is the main theme present in this poem. The poem begins with beautiful scenery of “a lush pasture” but then moves toward the conflict of race. While the photographer is taking the picture, he says to say race, which is very interesting considering that Trethewey is half black. After that the Fugitive Poets ask her a complicated question about not hating the south. It was very difficult for Natasha Trethewey in the south because her parents illegally married. Interracial relationships and marriages were not allowed in the south back when her parents had her. Because of this, Trethewey struggles with her ethnicity and which side to be. In this poem, she mentions that she is in “blackface” when the picture is taken. Does this mean that she feels more black than white? Does it mean that she is seen differently than other people? I personally can’t even imagine how it must have felt for her to be half white and half black in the south where bi-racial relationships weren’t allowed. It must have been very difficult to know how to act, and it must’ve been complicated to have relationships with other people. I love that Trethewey is able to talk about this in her poetry because I think it is a very interesting topic.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/17

“Miscegenation”

In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.

They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like //sin//, the sound of wrong -- //mis// in Mississippi.

A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the same as slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi.

Faulkner’s Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given his name for the day he was left at the orphanage, his race unknown in Mississippi.

My father was reading //War and Peace// when he gave me my name. I was born near Easter, 1966, in Mississippi.

When I turned 33 my father said, //It’s your Jesus year -- you’re the same// //age he was when he died.// It was spring, the hills green in Mississippi.

I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name -- though I’m not; it means //Christmas child,// even in Mississippi.

I chose this poem for my second one because I like how it relates to the first one with the theme of being bi-racial. At the beginning of the poem, she tells the reader that her parents broke the laws in Mississippi in order to be together. Not only was that dangerous, but it impacted their daughter’s life forever. The city Cincinnati has meaning in this poem because it begins with the sound of sin, which is what her parents were doing. By breaking the law, they were sinning. She then goes on to talk about how a character written by Faulkner was giving his name because he was born in winter and left at the orphanage on Christmas; his race was also unknown or foreign just like Trethewey’s. After talking about Joe Christmas, she tells the reader that her father named her while reading //War and Peace// around Easter time. She then goes on to talk about how it was her “Jesus year” when she was 33. Unlike Joe Christmas, Natasha knew the true meaning of her name; it means Christmas child which is important because it shows that she is also a child of God no matter her race. This poem is also very interesting with its structure. Each line ends with one of three words: name, Mississippi, or same. This tells the reader how important these things are to Trethewey. She truly cares about her name because she wants to be her own person and have her own identity rather than just a bi-racial person. She uses Mississippi often because that is her one, true home. She was born there and everything took place there, good and bad. By using same as one of the three words, she shows the reader how we are all truly the same no matter what race we are.

http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/370

“Theories of Time and Space” Natasha Trethewey
 * Wiki Post 1**

You can get there from here, though there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one- by-one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this to its natural conclusion – dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on the mangrove swamp – buried terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry – tome of memory, its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island, someone will take your picture:

the photograph – who you were – will be waiting when you return.

“Theories of Time and Space” by Natasha Trethewey is a poem about escaping who one used to be in search for a better life. Many of Trethewey’s poems focus of finding a better life and her deceased mother. Trethewey has a very colorful and tragic past due to her step father murdering her mother right in front of her when she was a little girl. Trethewey speaks in second person throughout this entire poem giving the reader instructions and advice. This poem opens with saying that one is able to leave where one is to get to a different place, but once one leaves, there is no going back home. After one leaves, he/she will experience new places and people, discovering the huge world out there. Trethewey then goes on to instruct the reader to go on a journey away from a small town in Mississippi to the pier at Gulfport where one needs to take a boat to Ship Island. She instructs the reader to only bring what he/she must carry; the bare necessities revealing memories are important to her. After the reader boards the boat headed for a new life, someone will take his/her picture capturing who he/she was in that moment. The last stanza is the most important part of the whole poem. “The photograph – who you were – will be waiting when you return.” This stanza is incredibly essential to the whole poem because it reveals the fact that no matter how much one tries to run away from his/her past, it will always stay with him/her. It doesn’t matter how far one goes or how much one tries to forget, one’s past makes one who he/she is. Although Trethewey had a tragic past, it made her who she is today; it has shaped her writing and personality in incredible ways.

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“Graveyard Blues”

It rained the whole time we were laying her down; Rained from church to grave when we put her down. The suck of mud at our feed was a hollow sound.

When the preacher called out I held up my hand; When he called for a witness I raised my hand – //Death stops the body’s work, the soul’s a journeyman.//

The sun came out when I turned to walk away, Glared down on me as I turned and walked away – My back to my mother, leaving her where she lay.

The road going home was pocked with holes, That home-going road’s always full of holes; Though we slow down, time’s wheel still rolls.

I wander now among names of the dead: My mother’s name, stone pillow for my head.

“Graveyard Blues” is a hauntingly beautiful poem portraying the death of Trethewey’s mother. This poem reveals the heart wrenching story of what Trethewey went through while she was at her mother’s funeral. She starts out by talking about the rain and how it was raining the whole time they were putting her mother into the ground. The word “hollow” in the third line reveals how Trethewey was feeling at the time; she felt empty at the loss of her mother. The second stanza has the most impact on me because it tells the reader that she was a witness to her mother’s murder. The sixth line: “Death stops the body’s work, the soul’s a journeyman” has great meaning behind it because besides the fact that it’s in italics, it is said by the preacher to lessen the pain one feels from death. As Trethewey was leaving, she mentions the sun coming out; perhaps this brings on hope for recovery and healing. As Trethewey goes home, the road is covered with holes, which can represent the emptiness she feels from the loss of her mother. At the end of the fourth stanza, Trethewey explains that although we humans are stuck in a period of sadness and despair, time keeps moving forward, and it will eventually heal all pain. The last two lines, although confusing, reveal to the reader that she is only able to think about her mother’s death. This poem’s tone of sadness evokes a feeling in the reader that makes one feel Trethewey’s loss with her. The structure of the poem is very interesting because each stanza has three lines; the first two are very similar to each other and end in the same word, and the third line brings on more meaning to the stanza and ends in a rhyme or slant rhyme to the preceding lines. This poem, although filled with despair, is one of my favorite poems by Trethewey because it makes me feel so much emotion, which is the ultimate goal of a poem.

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