Native Guard | Natasha Trethewey | Shock, Beauty, Sorrow, in a Lyric Sleeve

Native Guard | Natasha Trethewey | "Turning away from the city, as one turns, forgetting, from the past-"

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Native Guard

	Native Guard Natasha Trethewey Mariner Books, 2007 - 64 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Through elegiac verse that honors her mother and tells of her own fraught childhood, Natasha Trethewey confronts the racial legacy of her native Deep South -- where one of the first black regiments, the Louisiana Native Guards, was called into service during the Civil War. Trethewey's resonant and beguiling collection is a haunting conversation between personal experience and national history.

Shock, Beauty, Sorrow, in a Lyric Sleeve

This is one of the best new poetry books I've read in years: from the haunting and surprising poems of elegy to the author's mother, in the opening section (including a hymn!) to the middle section's integration of Southern history with personal fact, to the striking end section's reflections on personal history, race, and the impact of being biracial in the South--this is an intricate, accessible, beautiful book. And, the range of forms and subtle but powerful techniques the author uses make this the most unified varied body of work since, maybe, the Beatles made the White Album.

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"Turning away from the city, as one turns, forgetting, from the past-"

Weighted with temperament and the presence of graveyards, Trethewey paints vivid images of a past aware of its own history and the death of loved ones:

"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 feet was a hollow sound.

I wander now among names of the dead.
My mother's name, stone pillow for my head."
(Graveyard Blues)

Finding portents in simple childhood acts, the more mature poet replays such impulses in a new light:

"how they'd dry like graveside flowers, rustling
when the wind blew- a whisper, treacherous,
from the sill. Be taken with yourself,

they said to me: Die early, to my mother."
(Genus Narcissus)

Bi-racial, the poet blends the spirit of her parents with the inevitability of their destinies and the legacy to their child:

"Already the words are changing. She is changing
from colored to negro, black still years ahead.
This is 1966- she is married to a white man-
And there are more names for what grows inside her."
(My Mother Dreams Another Country)

Recounting the discoveries of childhood with a history in the south- war and miscegenation- I am struck by the poet's embrace of time and place, the troubled years of war and the ubiquitous presence of race in daily life; yet she instinctively draws beauty where there is none, an intimate awareness of her parentage and position in a black and white world she treads so intuitively. There is much to be learned simply by listening to Trethewey's words, caught in the magic of her introspective nature. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

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A thought provoking read.

As I read these poems, each offers a an insight which calls me to visualize the scenes that are portrayed. I've reread several passages to confirm their impact.

This book is great example of powerful modern poetry. I'll recommend it to many. it offers a profound mix of history and personal experience. Trethewey reveals her life and thoughts fearlessly.

Linda Jo Smith Reviews

Native Guard
by Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard is a superb example of storytelling through poetry. Her seamless imagery flows like lyrical essays inviting you into her world of "southern living" as seen by a woman whose mother was black and father white; a product of the infamous unwritten law of the two races mixing in the 1950's.
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, there is no denying that Trethewey has a distinctive style and demands the attention of word artists. The title poem, Native Guard, is not only a poignant excerpt of Civil War history buried in the hidden archives of the south, Trethewey professes the contributions soldiers of African decent who served this country in the name of freedom for all men.
Native Guard opens with a story/poem of the disappointment of her mother at 16, who left "the dirt roads of Mississippi" on a train to California to meet her father only to find him nowhere in sight. Trethewey sweetly illustrates the torment of physical abuse by her stepfather, mourns the passing of her mother, the cross burning in her front yard, and the beauty of the South with all its degeneracy. Her stories flow in sonnets, a pantoum, and a verse form I have yet to identify illustrated in "Myth" (page 14) which left me awestruck. Her poetry exudes a gentle anger that is soothed with a balm of historical lessons.
Native Guard is familial history and southern history. Trethewey provides notes for the epigraphs she used as well as the sources used to create the title poem "Native Guard."
I highly recommend purchasing this book, if for no other reason, for the fact that the sister won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry! I only wish I counld have purchased the first edition!

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Let down your guard and enjoy Native Guard

This is a fascinating life story, told through intricate, strong poems. If you like poetry, or storytelling, this is a fine collection.

reviews: page 1, 2

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