To understand the history of Natasha Trethewey, and to better understand why this name is worth our time and energy (beside the fact that she is the new United States Poet Laureate), we need to pull back on the “earth’s green sheet” (South 27) and see what rests on the bedrock. What we would literally find down there are the graves of slaves, black infantrymen forgotten amid the rubble, and the poet’s mother and father, that is, among the “ubiquitous and the set-aside” (Charles Wright, epigraph to Native Guard: Poems). However, the poet is not only concerned with physical graveyards, but with the cemetery of memory (Charles Wright). If that is the case, then it is no wonder then why a large portion of her poems are written in the “found” genre.
Concerned with history in the broadest and yet most intimate sense, Trethewey preserves it by using new verses for old songs, and traditional forms for universal concepts. In that way, nothing goes above the reader’s head. She’s not trying to blow your mind with lyrical tricks, instead; these poems are meant to be informative and intended to invoke what is sentimentally necessary. This is understandably no small task, but fortunately, with her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Native Guard: Poems, and with her latest installment, Thrall, Trethewey has done most of the digging for us, leaving us to tend with “Only the landscape of her body…settling a bit each day, the way all things do” (What is Evidence 12,14). And it is clear when reading her poetry that she is determined to settle the score, but will never settle for less.
You see, for the poet, the history of the body is a part of a larger American narrative: Born in 1966 to a black mother and a “Canadian” father (Canadian because it was illegal for white Americans to marry black Americans in 1965), Tretheway is living proof of the unspoken miscegenation pervasive in American culture since Spain’s arrival. It isn’t until Thrall that she finally begins to unravel the complicated (and unjust) categories that Spanish landowners used to question the legitimacy of their mix-blooded children. This absurd classification system is best exemplified in “Taxonomy.” Written in a series of four “after a series of casta paintings by Juan Rodríguez Juárez,” (Taxonomy, epigraph), the poet titles the sections accordingly: “De Español y de India Produce Mestiso” (Of Spanish and of Indian Produce Mestiso), “De Español y Negra Produce Mulato” (Of Spanish and of Negro Produce Mulato), “De Español y Mestiza Produce Castiza,” and “The Book of Castas,” or, as she calls it, “the book of naught.” Of course, being that the poet is comprised of the second “equation,” the book as a whole focuses more on this type of union (e.g. “Miracle of the Black Leg,” “Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus; or The Mulata,” “Mano Prieta,” etc.), but, it is worth drawing attention to the notion that each title bears a similar power-structure. In every case, the Spaniard is written in the masculine form, whereas the “other” is written in the feminine form. There are two reasons why the artist would choose to title the paintings this way. Firstly, for practical reasons (and I use the term “practical” loosely), since it had been the male Spaniards who were raping the female Indians and Negros, not the other way around. Secondly, describing a race of people with an effeminate form suggests weakness or inferiority. For this reason, then, Spaniards were morally-permitted to enslave the darker-skinned races in the name of rationality and justice. What’s more, considering that Juárez classified the first two progeny-types in the masculine form and the last two in the feminine, it further underscores their value in a two-folded way. One, by calling their “half-blood” children Mestizo and Mulatto, the Spaniard men were capable of fearing their “shadows, dark glyphs on the wall, / bigger and stranger than we are” (Southern Gothic 19-20), and, through this danger, could continue to treat them as slaves, and two; once the Castizos and Castas reached a state of being “too white,” the feminine form kept them “in thrall to a word” (The Book of Castas, 32), or better yet, enthralled—a word used often today to mean that someone is enslaved with the affections for another. As is apparent, the etymological significance of the word “thrall” (i.e. slave) is especially important in this context. It is why for Trethewey, “Death [is the only] fair master” (June 1863, 14).
1.
Nostos
Here
is the dark night
of
childhood—flickering
lamplight,
odd shadows
on
the walls—giant and flame
projected
through the clear
frame
of my father’s voice.
Here is the past come back
as metaphor: my father, as if
to ease me into sleep, reciting
the trials of Odysseus. Always
he begins with the Cyclops,
light at the cave’s mouth
bright as knowledge, the pilgrim
honing a pencil-sharp stake.
As is visually apparent, there is a lot of difference between the ‘c’ and ‘s.’ However, when it comes their sonic signature, some words (e.g. ‘voice’ and ‘past’) have the same sound. Then, at other times the poet demonstrates that these very two letters sound vastly different (as with ‘Odysseus’ and ‘Cyclops’)—the former a unified ‘s’ sound and the latter a hybrid of the ‘s’ and hard ‘c’ sound. Provided with the poet’s background, it is not farfetched to assume that Odysseus is her father, as he is pure white, and she is the Cyclops, a freak that is not one or the other. At times throughout the collection, these alliterations move swimmingly together, and other times, you can hear the clash and struggle as one tries to dominate the text. Alas, this is Trethewey’s view on race and racism: Due to history’s tainted lens, we see the difference in one another, but on the basic, most human level, we are the same—both trying to communicate our needs and desires.
It is the difference between the black and white, the difference between her mother and her father, why she is obsessed with history and poetry. Yet, she also explains her attraction to the historical with a personal anecdote: “My birthday is April 26th, Confederate Memorial Day…I was born 100 years to the day after that holiday was invented. I don’t think I could have escaped learning about the Civil War and what it represented” (NY Times). The word ‘escape’ is laden with connotations and elucidates upon her experiences revisiting Civil War Memorials with her father—evident in her ironically-titled poem “Enlightenment”. This is how the past is both far away and nearby in a stasis between buried and alive. With enough passion, drive, and honesty to try to pull it all together, Tretheway writes poetry so that we may “change and rewrite ourselves” (NY Times).
Photo
and brief description of the painting “Miracle of the Black Leg”: http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/345907/Berruguete-Pedro-c.1450-1504/Miracle-of-the-Black-Leg-oil-on-panel
More on the Louisiana Native Guards, the first all-black infantry which influenced the collection Native Guard: Poems: http://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-louisiana-native-guards.htm
Self-portrait of “Juan de Pareja, 1670”—the man who was the inspiration for the poem “Thrall”: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110002322
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