U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-23/us-poet-laureate-natasha-trethewey
U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi, 100 years to the day after Confederate Memorial Day was established. Her mother was black, her father is white. Their marriage was against the law in the state. Her poetry explores the interplay of race and memory in her life and in American history. The past she mines is often unsettling: growing up biracial in the deep south of the 1960s, the lives of forgotten African-American Civil War soldiers, her mother’s murder and the legacy of slavery. Tretheway is the first poet laureate to move to Washington, D.C., and work out of the Library of Congress since the position was established in 1986. She’s the first southern Poet Laureate since Robert Penn Warren. And she’s the first person to serve simultaneously as the poet laureate of a state –- Mississippi –- and the nation. In 2007, she received a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection, “Native Guard.” Last year, she published a follow-up titled, “Thrall.” She joins Diane to talk about the role of poetry in our everyday lives.
Guests
Natasha Trethewey
U.S. Poet Laureate and Mississippi Poet Laureate, professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. "Native Guard," her third collection of poetry, received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Her latest collection is "Thrall."
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Read An Excerpt
Excerpt from "Thrall: Poems" by Natasha Trethewey. Poems include "Help, 1968," "Elegy for My Father," and "Enlightenment." Copyright 2012 by Natasha Trethewey. Reprinted here by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Comments
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Great story! Would she have advise for those of who write poetry and have no way to show their work? There are many poets who have no way to show their work.
I would love to know which primary school you attended while living in Gulfport MS? My mother (maiden name is Dew) is from Gulfport and I lived in Gulfport from 1970 - 1974.
I remember the Woolworth you just referenced.
I have a Master in Curriculum and Teaching, a Master in Accounting, am a middle school/high school math teacher and am curious what your thoughts are about how grade school and middle school teachers and better encourage students to read poetry. I was turned off of poetry at a young age because when I commented about my thoughts about a poem, many of my teachers would tell me my ideas were wrong. According to my memory, there seemed to be "right" and a "wrong" answer to questions posed about a poem. Even thought I was extremely studious (valedictorian of my high school), my experiences discouraged me from exploring poetry because I seemed to always have the "wrong" answers which I never understood because I think poetry can have different messages for different people at different times in their lives.
Would someone share the name of the first poem Ms. Tretheway read? Something about Icarus? Thanks.
Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden. God, I so enjoyed this interview!!!!!!!