When you begin to think about the past, you realize how much of it is lost to us. Natasha Trethewey More Quotes by Natasha Trethewey More Quotes From Natasha Trethewey Growing up, my birthday was always Confederate Memorial Day. It helped to create this profound sense of awareness about the Civil War and the 100 years between the Civil War and the civil rights movement and my parents' then-illegal and interracial marriage. Natasha Trethewey daymarriagebirthdaywar Dismissals of poetry are nothing new. It's easy to dismiss poetry if one has not read much of it. Natasha Trethewey nothingnewpoetryeasy 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 myselfpoetrymotherpeople 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 childchildrenpeopleworld 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 followpossibledowntrying 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 storyknowmomentway Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem. Natasha Trethewey i-ammy-lifedaughterlife I want to be the best advocate and promoter for poetry that I can be. Natasha Trethewey besti-canpoetrywant Writers, particularly poets, always feel exiled in some way - people who don't exactly feel at home, so they try to find a home in language. Natasha Trethewey feellanguagehomepeople From the catbird seat, I've found poetry to be the necessary utterance it has always been in America. Natasha Trethewey seatalwayspoetryamerica It took me years of attempts and failed drafts before I finally wrote the elegies I needed to write. Natasha Trethewey finallywritemeyears I started out in graduate school to be a fiction writer. I thought I wanted to write short stories. I started writing poems at that point only because a friend of mine dared me to write a poem. And I took the dare because I was convinced that I couldn't write a good poem... And then it actually wasn't so bad. Natasha Trethewey friendgoodmeschool It is a tremendous honor to be named poet laureate, but one that I find humbling as well, because it's the kind of thing that makes me feel like - even as it's been bestowed upon me - I must continue to live up to what it means... Being the younger laureate in the age of social media is a new challenge. Natasha Trethewey challengemesocial-mediaage On a very personal level, I have fond memories of spending a lot of time in the Library of Congress working on my collection of poems 'Native Guard.' I was there over a summer doing research in the archives and then writing in the reading room at the Jefferson building. Natasha Trethewey libraryresearchtimememories My parents had to go to Ohio to get married in 1965 because it was still illegal in Mississippi. My white father and black mother. Natasha Trethewey parentsblackmotherfather I think I felt at some point that I couldn't understand poetry or that it was beyond me or it didn't speak to my experience. I think that was because I hadn't yet found the right poems to invite me in. Natasha Trethewey meexperiencepoetryspeak For a long time, I've been interested in cultural memory and historical erasure. Natasha Trethewey memorylong-timetimelong
