33 Natasha Trethewey Quotes for You to Enjoy

Natasha Trethewey

American Poet

Born: Apr 26, 1966

History Me People Poet Think Writing

Related authors: Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Maya Angelou Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost T. S. Eliot Walt Whitman

Poetry's a thing that belongs to everyone. Natasha Trethewey

Everyone Poetry Thing Belongs

I am interested in 18th century natural philosophy, science, particularly botany, the study of hybridity in plants and animals, which, of course, then allows me to consider the hybridity of language. Natasha Trethewey

Me Science Natural Language Plants Animals Consider Philosophy Botany Study Particularly Course Am Which Interested Century Then Plants And Animals

Dismissals of poetry are nothing new. It's easy to dismiss poetry if one has not read much of it. Natasha Trethewey

Nothing Easy Poetry New Read Much Nothing New Dismiss

The first thing I tried to do in the months after losing my mother was to write a poem. I found myself turning to poetry in the way so many people do - to make sense of losses. And I wrote pretty bad poems about it. But it did feel that the poem was the only place that could hold this grief. Natasha Trethewey

Myself Grief People Mother Losing First Sense Way Months Bad Tried Pretty About Poem Poems Only Poetry Could Write Feel Wrote Make First Thing Losses Did So Many People The First Thing Hold After Place Turning Many Found Thing

I overheard things in the Woolworths when I was a child, people saying, 'Oh, poor, little thing,' as if they had some understanding that I was being born biracial into a world that was still very difficult for interracial marriages and biracial children. Natasha Trethewey

When I write notes in my journal, I'm just trying to scribble down as much as possible. Later on, I decide whether to follow some of those first impressions or whether to abandon them. Natasha Trethewey

I know that my tendency is to be linear, and I'm trying to find ways to subvert that. And so in 'Bellocq's Ophelia' my device for subverting it was to tell the story and then to tell it again; it always circles back to this one moment, and it's not linear, but it's round in that way, and much of 'Native Guard' is like that. Natasha Trethewey

In the early 1970s in Atlanta, I attended what had formerly been an all-white school but had become a black school after integration and white flight. Perhaps because of this, the teachers created a curriculum that included a focus on African American literature and history year-round, not just in February. Natasha Trethewey

History School Focus Black Become White Atlanta February Had Attended Perhaps Because Year-Round Been Integration American Just Curriculum African African-American After Literature American Literature Created Teachers Flight Included Early

For a long time, I've been interested in cultural memory and historical erasure. Natasha Trethewey

Time Memory Long Long Time Been Cultural Historical Interested

My father, Eric Trethewey, is a poet, so I had one right inside the house. And on long trips, he'd tell me, if I got bored in the car, to write a poem about it. And I did find that poetry was a way for me, I think as it for a lot of people, to articulate those things that seem hardest to say. Natasha Trethewey

Me People Car Father Long Poet Think Way Say Those Tell Find Bored Inside About Seem Trips Poem Poetry Write Had He House Got Eric Lot Articulate Did Hardest Right Things

Before I was ever a poet, my father was writing poems about me, so it was a turning of the tables when I became a poet and started answering, speaking back to his poems in ways that I had not before. Natasha Trethewey

Me Writing Father Poet Before Back Ways Tables About Poems Had Became Answering His Turning Speaking Ever Started

When I'm actually writing by hand, I get more of a sense of the rhythm of sentences, of syntax. The switch to the computer is when I actually start thinking about lines. That's the workhorse part. At that point, I'm being more mathematical about putting the poem on the page and less intuitive about the rhythm of the syntax. Natasha Trethewey

Writing Sense Thinking Syntax Intuitive About Poem More Point Computer Part Putting Lines Mathematical Hand Get Being Rhythm Sentences Page Less Switch Actually Start

The more I've gotten interested in writing about history and making sense of myself within the continuum of history, the more I've turned to paintings, to art. I look to the imagery of art to help me understand something about my own place in the world. Natasha Trethewey

Art Myself Me History Writing World Own Sense About Something My Own More Look Within Understand Making Gotten Continuum Place Interested Turned Help Paintings Imagery

The entirety of 'Bellocq's Ophelia' was a project, and I was interested in doing research and looking at photographs and writing about them, imagining this woman Ophelia and what her life was like and the kinds of things she thought about. Natasha Trethewey

Life Woman Writing Thought Looking Research Project Photographs Kinds About Entirety Like She Doing Interested Them Her Things Imagining

I think that it's hard enough being an adolescent and wanting so much to fit in with your peers, your schoolmates, and to erase any sign of difference, to be part of the group. And being biracial but also being black in a predominately white school marked me as different. Natasha Trethewey

I think poetry's always a kind of faith. It is the kind that I have. Natasha Trethewey

Faith Think Kind Poetry Always

One of two historically African American communities that sprang up along the Mississippi Gulf Coast after emancipation, North Gulfport has always been a place where residents have had fewer civic resources than those extended to other outlying communities. Natasha Trethewey

Other Resources Emancipation Those Gulf Gulf Coast Civic Had Along Mississippi Always Been Up Historically Than North American Fewer African Where African-American After Place Communities Coast Residents Extended Two

When I was growing up there, North Gulfport was referred to as 'Little Vietnam' because of the perception of crime and depravity within its borders - as if its denizens were simply a congregation of the downtrodden. Natasha Trethewey

Crime Perception Borders Simply Because Within Were Referred Up North Little Vietnam Congregation Growing Growing Up

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