Monument
Poems New and Selected
Natasha Trethewey
- 208 páginas
- English
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Monument
Poems New and Selected
Natasha Trethewey
Información del libro
Urgent new poems on race and gender inequality, and select poems drawing upon Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia, Native Guard, Congregation, and Thrall, from two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey. Layering joy and urgent defiance—against physical and cultural erasure, against white supremacy whether intangible or graven in stone—Trethewey's work gives pedestal and witness to unsung icons. Monument, Trethewey's first retrospective, draws together verse that delineates the stories of working class African American women, a mixed-race prostitute, one of the first black Civil War regiments, mestizo and mulatto figures in Casta paintings, and Gulf coast victims of Katrina. Through the collection, inlaid and inextricable, winds the poet's own family history of trauma and loss, resilience and love. In this setting, each poem drawn from an "opus of classics both elegant and necessary, "* weaves and interlocks with those that come before and those that follow. As a whole, Monument casts new light on the trauma of our national wounds, our shared history. This is a poet's remarkable labor to source evidence, persistence, and strength from the past in order to change the very foundation of the vocabulary we use to speak about race, gender, and our collective future. *Academy of American Poets' chancellor Marilyn Nelson "[Trethewey's poems] dig beneath the surface of history—personal or communal, from childhood or from a century ago—to explore the human struggles that we all face." —James H. Billington, 13th Librarian of Congress
Preguntas frecuentes
Información
Domestic Work
FOR LERETTA DIXON TURNBOUGH (LEE)
JUNE 22, 1916–JULY 28, 2008
I shirk not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving.—W.E.B. Du Bois
1. Domestic Work, 1937
All week she’s cleanedsomeone else’s house,stared down her own facein the shine of copper-bottomed pots, polishedwood, toilets she’d pullthe lid to—that look sayingLet’s make a change, girl.But Sunday mornings are hers—church clothes starchedand hanging, a record spinningon the console, the whole housedancing. She raises the shades,washes the rooms in light,buckets of water, Octagon soap.Cleanliness is next to godliness . . .Windows and doors flung wide,curtains two-steppingforward and back, neck bonesbumping in the pot, a choirof clothes clapping on the line.Nearer my God to Thee . . .She beats time on the rugs,blows dust from the broomlike dandelion spores, each onea wish for something better.
2. Speculation, 1939
First, the moles on each hand—That’s money by the pan—and always the New Year’s cabbageand black-eyed peas. Now this,another remembered adage,her palms itching with promise,she swears by the signs—Money coming soon.But from where? Her left-eye twitchsays she’ll see the boon.Good—she’s tired of the elevator switch,those closed-in spaces, white men’ssideways stares. Nothing buttime to think, make planseach time the doors slide shut.What’s to be gained from this New Deal?Something finer like beauty schoolor a milliner’s shop—she loves the feelof marcelled hair, felt and tulle,not this all-day standing around,not that elevator lurching up, then down.
3. Secular
Workweek’s endand there’s enoughblock-ice in the boxto chill a washtub of colasand one large melon,dripping green.After service, each house opensheavy doors to street and woods,one clear shot from front to back—bullet, breeze, or holler.A neighbor’s Yoo-hoo reaches herout back, lolling, pulling in wash,pillow slips billowingaround her head like clouds.Up the block,a brand-new Grafonola,parlor music, blues parlando—Big Mama, Ma Rainey, Bessie—baby shake that thing like a saltshaker.Lipstick, nylonsand she’s out the door,tipping past the church house,Dixie Peach in her hair,greased forehead shininglike gospel, like gold.
4. Signs, Oakvale, Mississippi, 1941
The first time she leaves home is with a man.On Highway 49, heading north, she watchesthe pine woods roll by, and counts on one handdead possum along the road, crows in splotchesof light—she knows to watch the signs for luck.He has a fine car, she thinks. And money greenenough to buy a dream—more than she could tuckunder the mattress, in a Bible, or fold betweenher powdered breasts. He’d promised land to farmback home, new dresses, a house where she’d bequeen. (Was that gap in his teeth cause for alarm?)The cards said go. She could roam the Delta, seethings she’d never seen. Outside her window,nothing but cotton and road signs—stop or slow.
5. Expectant
Nights are hardest, the swelling,tight and low (a girl), Delta heat,and that woodsy silence a zephyred hush.So how to keep busy? Wind the clocks,measure out time to check the window,or listen hard for his car on the road.Small tasks done and undone, a floorswept clean. She can fill a roomwith a loud clear alto, broom-danceright out the back door, her heavy footstepsa parade beneath the stars. Honeysucklefragrant as perfume, nightlifea steady insect hum. Still, sh...