Lily's Blog

Challenging Poem: Theories of Time and Space

Natasha Trethewey’s “Theories of Time and Space” is challenging on a first read, mostly due to its layered meanings and very abstract ideas. At first, it seems like a straightforward poem about a road trip along the Gulf Coast, but the opening lines (“You can get there from here, though / there’s no going home”) makes it clear there’s a bigger picture, even though the reader does not yet understand it. Additionally, the poem’s title itself can be confusing, as it seems unrelated to this narrative of a road trip that Trethewey uses to get her ultimate point, that experiences are shaped by not only the physical worlds but our internal perceptions. Trethewey’s own experience growing up as a biracial child in a segregated South informs the poem’s exploration of how history, race, and personal memory intertwine, often creating many layers of meaning and emotion when looking back on memories like a road trip.

Accessible Poem: Graveyard Blues

Natasha Trethewey’s “Graveyard Blues”  is relatively easy to understand compared to some of her other work, especially when you are aware of Trethewey’s personal history. It deals with themes of loss and memory through a very understandable setting: a graveyard. By using suce a universally understood setting,  Trethewey creates an entry point for readers to contemplate complex themes of grief and memory and for herself to commemorate her mothers loss without the need for heavy interpretation or complex symbolism. The themes of grief and the permanence of loss are central to Trethewey’s own life, as her mother was murdered by her stepfather when Trethewey was only 19. This tragic event, which deeply affected her, is central to many of her works, including Graveyard Blues. Understanding Trethewey’s personal history helps the reader connect more deeply with the poem, as her own experiences with memory and mourning inform the speaker’s reflections on the dead. The poem’s simplicity allows readers to focus on its emotional content, making it accessible while exploring themes of memory, mortality, and remembrance.

“Just Right” Poem: Elegy [“I think by now the river must be thick”]

Natasha Trethewey’s poem “Elegy [“I think by now the river must be thick”]” strikes a perfect balance between accessibility and depth, making it a “just right” example of poetry. The poem discusses themes of loss, memory, and the passage of time through the narrative of a fishing trip,  capturing the complex emotions that accompany mourning. The language is direct, but the meaning is hidden behind the narrative. Trethewey’s choice of imagery, such as the river becoming “thick” over time shows the slow accumulation and effects of grief and memory. This imagery is clear enough for readers to understand but it also invites deeper reflection on what it means for time to “thicken” and how loss changes our perception of it. Trethewey’s personal background enhances the impact of Elegy [“I think by now the river must be thick”]. The poem is deeply personal, rooted in her own experience of grief, especially the loss of her mother. Understanding Trethewey’s life and her engagement with themes of loss, race and memory provides greater insight into the poem’s emotional depth for Trethewey. The poem doesn’t just comment on her mother’s death but the collective memory of loss, shaped by history and race. 

Additional Reading (and Watching) on Natasha Trethewey:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/q-and-a/how-natasha-trethewey-remembers-her-mother

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Natasha-Trethewey

I chose to write about the poem Enlightenment by Natasha Trethewey. This poem comments on the modern interpretation of history, specifically how society seems to forget about and forgive white people’s actions and celebrates their positive actions without mention of their evil. She tells this through a story of visiting Monticello, the home of President Thomas Jefferson, with her white father. Trethewey is bi-racial.

The poem opens with Trethewey describing Jefferson’s portrait as “two-toned,” representing the complexity of his, and every slave-owning-historical-figures, legacy. She describes Jefferson’s forehead as “white with illumination.” Here, Trethewey points out Jefferson’s whiteness, setting the tone for the rest of the poem and clueing the reader in to what she will discuss and comment on. The word illuminate also has a double meaning. Society has a tendency to illuminate, or focus on, just a person’s accomplishments, especially when that person is white. Trethewey uses the word illuminate to emphasize the illumination of his good traits and deeds by society – his writing of the Declaration of Independence, his presidency, his philosophical contributions. By illuminating these things, it is also true that other things are able to fall into the background, not being seen or mentioned.

This selective illumination reveals Trethewey’s broader critique of how history is taught and remembered. Along with seeing the illumination of Jefferson’s positive actions in the portrait at Monticello, Trethewey sees “the rest of his face in shadow” – a metaphor and representation of Jefferson’s wrongdoings – particularly his owning of and mistreatment of black people as slaves. For Tretheway, the shadows on Jefferson’s face not only represent his negative actions, but also society’s amnesia in regards to the horrificness of slavery and the omnipresence of it for black people in America. Trethewey frames this duality as a commentary on society’s tendency to sanitize history.

Later in the poem, she looks down on her father (and society as a whole for teaching him this) for feeling the need to justify Jefferson’s owning of slaves. She describes his jumping around Monticello “as if to prove a man’s pursuit of knowledge is greater than his shortcomings.” By using these words Trethewey’s description paints her fathers acts as performative – like he must convince himself and others (his black daughter maybe?) of Jefferson’s righteousness. This creates a sense of discomfort in readers, perhaps an intentional choice by Trethewey to force the reader to look at their own education to see if the history they were taught was a white-washed, incomplete story.

Throughout the poem, Trethewey also uses irony to further push her commentary. During her visit to Monticello, while her father justifies Jefferson’s actions, how he needed slaves “out of necessity” and how it “would have been impossible” for Jefferson to father children with a black woman, Trethewey is incredibly aware of the both the contradictions and racism in his words and argument and of how his mindset, one of ignorance, is present all around her. The irony is the difference between her and her white fathers viewpoints, and how it further exacerbates Tretheways sense of loneliness in a whitewashed world.

In conclusion, Trethewey’s poem “Enlightenment” presents a critique of the selective memory of history and how society forgets and rejects the uncomfortable truths of celebrated historical figures.