Natasha Trethewey

{{infobox writer

| name = Natasha Trethewey

| image = Natasha-trethewey2.JPG

| caption = Trethewey reading at the Library of Congress in 2013

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1966|4|26}}

| birth_place = Gulfport, Mississippi, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Poet, professor

| education = University of Georgia (BA)
Hollins University (MA)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (MFA)

| genre = Poetry

| spouse = Brett Gadsden

| awards = {{awards |Pulitzer Prize for Poetry |2007}} {{awards | Poet Laureate of Mississippi |2012–2016}} {{awards |United States Poet Laureate |2012–2014}} {{awards|Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities|2017}}

}}

Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who served as United States Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014.{{cite news|last=Bentley|first=Rosalind|title=Emory professor named U.S. poet laureate|url=http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/emory-professor-named-u-1453683.html|access-date=June 7, 2012|newspaper=The Atlanta Journal-Constitution|date=June 6, 2012}} She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard,{{cite news |title=Pulitzer Prize Winner Trethewey Discusses Poetry Collection | date=April 25, 2007 | url =https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june07/trethewey_04-25.html | work=PBS NewsHour | access-date = June 7, 2012}} and is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi.{{cite web|title=Mississippi has new poet laureate|url=http://www.arts.state.ms.us/news/PoetLaureatetrethewey.php|publisher=Mississippi Arts Commission|access-date=June 7, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331040546/http://www.arts.state.ms.us/news/PoetLaureatetrethewey.php|archive-date=March 31, 2017}}

Trethewey is the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. She previously served as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she taught from 2001 to 2017.{{Cite news |date=2016-11-24 |title=Former U.S. Poet Laureate to Leave Emory for Northwestern |language=en-US |work=Emory Wheel |url=https://emorywheel.com/23945-2/|first=Joshua|last=Lee |access-date=2020-07-22}}

Trethewey was elected in 2019 both to the American Academy of Arts and Letters{{cite web |last1=Fedor |first1=Ashley |title=2019 Newly Elected Members |url=https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2019-newly-elected-members/ |website=American Academy of Arts and Letters |access-date=8 January 2020}} and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Academy of American Poets Chancellor David St. John said Trethewey “is one of our formal masters, a poet of exquisite delicacy and poise who is always unveiling the racial and historical inequities of our country and the ongoing personal expense of these injustices. Rarely has any poetic intersection of cultural and personal experience felt more inevitable, more painful, or profound.”{{Cite web|url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/natasha-trethewey|title=Natasha Trethewey - Poet {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Trethewey|first=Natasha|date=2001-02-01|website=Natasha Trethewey|language=en|access-date=2019-01-18}} Trethewey was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.{{cite web | url=https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/american-philosophical-society-welcomes-new-members-2022 | title=The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2022 |publisher=American Philosophical Society|date=May 25, 2022}}

Early years and personal life

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, on April 26, 1966, to Eric Trethewey and Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough. Her parents traveled to Ohio to marry because their marriage was illegal in Mississippi at the time of Trethewey's birth, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws with Loving v. Virginia. Her birth certificate noted the race of her mother as "colored", and the race of her father as "Canadian".Trethewey, Eric In the Traces: poems. Tempe, Ariz.: Inland Boat/Porch Publications 1980 // Songs and Lamentations: poems. Cincinnati, OH: Word Press, c2004{{Cite web |title=U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey reads 'Miscegenation' | date=11 April 2014 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLQxbDo_N9w |language=en |access-date=2022-11-09|via=YouTube}}

Trethewey's mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, was a social worker and part of the inspiration for Native Guard (2006), which is dedicated to her memory. Trethewey's parents divorced when she was six; Turnbough was murdered in 1985 by her second husband, whom she had recently divorced, when Trethewey was 19 years old.{{cite news|last=Solomon|first=Deborah|title=Native Daughter|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13wwln-Q4-t.html?_r=1|access-date=July 20, 2012|newspaper=New York Times Magazine|date=May 13, 2007}} Recalling her reaction to her mother's death, she said: "that was the moment when I both felt that I would become a poet and then immediately afterward felt that I would not. I turned to poetry to make sense of what had happened."{{cite news|last=McGrath|first=Charles|title=New Laureate Looks Deep Into Memory|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/natasha-trethewey-is-named-poet-laureate.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB|access-date=8 June 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 6, 2012}}

Trethewey's father, Canadian emigrant Eric Trethewey, was also a poet and a professor of English at Hollins University.{{cite web|title=Faculty|url=http://www.hollins.edu/grad/eng_writing/faculty/faculty.htm|work=M.F.A in Creative Writing|publisher=Hollins University|access-date=June 7, 2012}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/natasha-trethewey|title=Natasha Trethewey|date=2019-01-17|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en|access-date=2019-01-18}}

Trethewey is married to historian Brett Gadsden.{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/brett-gadsden.html|title=Brett Gadsden: Department of History - Northwestern University|website=www.history.northwestern.edu|language=en|access-date=2019-01-18}}

Education

Trethewey earned her B.A. degree in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. In May 2010 Trethewey delivered the commencement speech at Hollins University and was awarded an honorary doctorate.{{cite news|last=Marrano|first=Gene|title=Hollins Students Ready To Do "Fantastic Things"|url=http://theroanokestar.com/?p=5981|access-date=June 7, 2012|newspaper=The Roanoke Star|date=May 7, 2010}} She had previously received an honorary degree from Delta State University in her native Mississippi.{{cite web|title=Delta State awards Pulitzer Prize winner honorary degree at Fall Commencement|url=http://www.deltastate.edu/pages/1073.asp?item=3140|publisher=Delta State University|access-date=June 7, 2012|date=December 8, 2007}}

Poetry

File:Natasha Trethewey during book signing at the University of Michigan.jpg, 2011]]

Structurally, her work combines free verse with more structured, traditional forms such as the sonnet and the villanelle. Thematically, her work examines "memory and the racial legacy of America". The many publications in which her work has appeared include The Best American Poetry (2000 and 2003), Agni, American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and the Southern Review,{{cite web|url=https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/natasha-trethewey/|title=Natasha Trethewey (1966 – Present)|website=americanpoems.com}} as well as in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[https://www.librarything.com/work/22686580 "New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent"] at Library thing.

Trethewey's first published poetry collection, Domestic Work (2000), was the inaugural recipient of the Cave Canem prize for a first book by an African-American poet.{{Cite web|url=https://cavecanempoets.org/publications/|title=Cave Canem » Publications|language=en|access-date=2019-01-18}} The book explores the work and lives of black men and women in the South.

Bellocq's Ophelia (2002), for example, is a collection of poetry in the form of an epistolary novella; it tells the fictional story of a mixed-race prostitute who was photographed by E. J. Bellocq in early 20th-century New Orleans.

Her work Beyond Katrina, published in 2015 by the University of Georgia Press, is an account of the devastating events that happened after the hurricane hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This novel tells of how her friends, family, and neighbors were affected by the damage of Hurricane Katrina. Her writing includes themes of race conflicts, memories of her family background, and the economic effects of what the hurricane caused. Although it is a novel, she includes her poetry to capture the events that were caused beyond the hurricane itself. She also tackles what it is like being an African American in a troubled state of circumstance with the place where one grew up and loves. Trethewey found inspiration for her novel in Robert Penn Warren's 1956 book Segregation: The Inner Conflict in the South. Trethewey includes pictures throughout her book alongside her writing. These serve as a visual device, to aid in the readers understanding of the novel.

The American Civil War makes frequent appearances in her work. Born on Confederate Memorial Day—exactly 100 years afterwards—Trethewey explains that she could not have "escaped learning about the Civil War and what it represented", and that it had fascinated her since childhood. For example, her 2006 book Native Guard tells the story of the Louisiana Native Guards, an all-black regiment in the Union Army, composed mainly of former slaves who enlisted, that guarded the Confederate prisoners of war.

United States Poet Laureate

On June 7, 2012, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, named her the 19th US Poet Laureate.{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-12-114/natasha-trethewey-named-poet-laureate/2012-06-07/|title=Librarian of Congress Appoints Natasha Trethewey Poet Laureate|website=Library of Congress|access-date=2019-01-18}} Billington said, after hearing her poetry at the National Book Festival, that he was "immediately struck by a kind of classic quality with a richness and variety of structures with which she presents her poetry … she intermixes her story with the historical story in a way that takes you deep into the human tragedy of it."{{cite news|title=Natasha Trethewey is named as the newest poet laureate|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0607/Natasha-Trethewey-is-named-as-the-newest-poet-laureate|last=Haq|first=Husna|date=June 7, 2012|access-date=June 11, 2012| newspaper=Christian Science Monitor}} Newspapers noted that unlike most poets laureate, Trethewey is in the middle of her career. She was also the first laureate to take up residence in Washington, D.C., when she did so in January 2013.{{cite news|title=Natasha Trethewey, explorer of forgotten Civil War history, named 19th U.S. poet laureate|url=https://theprovince.com/news/Natasha+Trethewey+explored+forgotten+Civil+history+named+19th/6745858/story.html|last=Zongker|first=Barry|agency=Associated Press|date=June 7, 2012|access-date=June 11, 2012|newspaper=The Province}}

Trethewey was appointed for a second term as US Poet Laureate in 2013, and as several previous multiyear laureates had done, Trethewey took on a project, which took the form of a regular section on PBS News Hour called "Where Poetry Lives".{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/where-poetry-lives|title=where poetry lives|website=PBS NewsHour|language=en-us|access-date=2019-01-18}} On May 14, 2014, Trethewey delivered her final lecture to conclude her second term as US Poet Laureate.{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6294|title=Natasha Trethewey Presents Final Lecture as Poet Laureate Webcast {{!}} Library of Congress|website=www.loc.gov|date=May 14, 2014|access-date=2019-01-18}}

Positions

Trethewey has held appointments at Duke University, as the Lehman Brady Joint Chair Professor of Documentary and American Studies, and at Emory University, where she was Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing; the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and Yale University.{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/natasha-trethewey|website=Poetry Foundation|title=Natasha Trethewey|language=en-us|access-date=2021-03-24}}

Bibliography

=Poetry=

{{cite book| title=Domestic Work| publisher=Graywolf Press| year=2000| isbn=978-1-55597-309-4}}
{{cite book| title=Bellocq's Ophelia| publisher=Graywolf Press| year=2002| isbn=978-1-55597-359-9| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/bellocqsopheliap0000tret}}{{cite news|title=Memory's metaphors|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=May 7, 2007|page=A10}}
{{cite book| title=Native Guard| publisher=Houghton Mifflin| year=2006| isbn=978-0-618-87265-7}}
{{cite book| title=Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast| publisher=University of Georgia Press| year=2010| isbn=978-0-8203-3381-6}} (Poetry, essays, and letters)
{{cite book| title=Thrall| publisher=Houghton Mifflin| year=2012| isbn=978-0547571607| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/thrallpoems00tret}}
{{cite book| title=Monument: Poems New and Selected| publisher=Houghton Mifflin| year=2018|isbn=978-1328507846}}

=As editor=

{{cite book|title=Best New Poets 2007|year=2007|publisher=Samovar Press|location=Charlottesville, Virginia|isbn=978-0-976-62962-7|editor=Trethewey, Natasha|editor2=Livengood, Jeb|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/bestnewpoets20070000unse}}{{cite web|last=Robinson|first=Malaika I.|title=Best American Poetry 2007 & Best New Poets 2007|url=http://www.olssons.com/newsfrompoems/2008/01/best-american-poets-2007-best-new-poets.html|work=Olsson's: The News From Poems|publisher=Olsson's Books Records|access-date=June 7, 2012|date=January 17, 2008}}

=Memoir=

{{Cite book |last=Trethewey |first=Natasha |title=The House of Being |date=2024 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-26592-7 |series=Why I write |location=New Haven|url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300265927/the-house-of-being/}}
{{Cite book |last=Trethewey |first=Natasha D. |title=Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir |publisher=Harper Collins |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-06-224857-2 |oclc=1125368285}}

Awards

1999: First Annual Cave Canem Foundation Poetry Prize for Domestic Work, selected by Rita Dove{{cite web|title=Prize Winning Books|url=http://cavecanempoets.org/prize-winning-books|publisher=Cave Canem Foundation|access-date=June 7, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120528211228/http://www.cavecanempoets.org/prize-winning-books|archive-date=May 28, 2012}}
1999: Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts
2000: Bunting Fellowship for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
2001:, 2003, 2007 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prizes
2001, 2007: Lillian Smith Book Award{{cite web|title=Lillian Smith Book Award Winners|url=http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/lsawardwinners1.html|publisher=University of Georgia|access-date=June 7, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616073213/http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/lsawardwinners1.html|archive-date=June 16, 2012}}
2003: Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
2004: Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation for residency at the Bellagio Study Center{{cite web|title=Residents|url=http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/56cb6993-d5db-4a58-9402-0ba112810907-2004.pdf|work=The Rockefeller Foundation 2004 Annual Report|publisher=The Rockefeller Foundation|access-date=June 7, 2012}}
2007: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry{{cite news|title=Poet Natasha Trethewey, Hymning the Native Guard|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12003278|access-date=April 7, 2011|newspaper=NPR|date=July 16, 2007}}
2008: Georgia Woman of the Year by the Georgia Commission on Women{{Cite web|url=http://shared.web.emory.edu/emory/news/releases/2008/07/trethewey-named-ga-woman-of-the-year.html#.XEIT8y2ZPq0|title=Trethewey Named Ga. Woman of the Year {{!}} Emory University {{!}} Atlanta, GA|website=shared.web.emory.edu|access-date=2019-01-18}}
2009: James Weldon Johnson Fellow in African American Studies at Yale's Beinecke Library.{{Cite web|url=https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/about/blogs/african-american-studies-beinecke-library/2009/09/10/welcome-jwj-fellow-natasha|title=Welcome JWJ Fellow Natasha Trethewey {{!}} Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library|website=beinecke.library.yale.edu|access-date=2019-01-18}}
2011: Georgia Writers Hall of Fame Inductee{{Cite web|url=https://georgiawritershalloffame.org/honorees/natasha-trethewey|title=Georgia Writers Hall of Fame|website=georgiawritershalloffame.org|access-date=2020-01-25}}
2012: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/}}{{cite news |title=2012 Summit Highlights Photo | url= https://achievement.org/summit/2012/|quote= Poet Laureate of the United States Natasha Trethewey receives the Golden Plate Award from Benjamin Carson.}}
2012: Poet Laureate of Mississippi
2012: United States Poet Laureate
2015: PEN Oakland – Josephine Miles Literary Award
2016: Academy of American Poets Fellowship
2017: 22nd Annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities{{Cite web|publisher=Heinz Awards |title=Natasha Trethewey {{!}} Arts & Humanities {{!}} 22nd Heinz Awards - 2017|url=http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/natasha-trethewey}}
2018: Sidney Lanier Prize for Southern Literature{{Cite web |access-date=2023-09-18 |title=Sidney Lanier Prize |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006075632/https://cla.mercer.edu/southern-studies/sidney-lanier-prize/ |archive-date=6 Oct 2014 |url=https://cla.mercer.edu/southern-studies/sidney-lanier-prize/}}
2020: Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for Lifetime Achievement
2021: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Memorial Drive{{cite web | title=Introducing Our Class of 2021 | website=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards | date=April 5, 2021 | url=https://www.anisfield-wolf.org/2021/04/introducing-our-class-of-2021/ | access-date=April 5, 2021}}

References

External links

[https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/trethewey/ Natasha Trethewey: Online Resources] at the Library of Congress
[http://blog.aus.edu/bid/288082/U-S-Poet-Laureate-Natasha-Tretheway-Speaks-at-AUS U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway Speaks at AUS]
[http://www.creativewriting.emory.edu/faculty/trethewey.html Faculty bio] at Emory
[http://southernspaces.org/taxonomy_vtn/term/130 Natasha Trethewey] on Southern Spaces
[http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v5n1/features/trethewey_n_060106/trethewey_n.htm Trethewey reading from The Native Guard February 2006], in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Volume 5, No. 1 (Spring 2006)
[https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/f/15678/files/2020/11/Interview_with_Natasha_Trethewey_TorchLitJournal_2010.pdf Interview with Natasha Trethewey], at Yale University, December 10, 2009

[http://www.waccamawjournal.com/pages.html?x=324 Trethewey interview with Daniel Cross Turner] for Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature (Fall 2011)
{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/just-asking-poet-laureate-natasha-trethewey/2014/04/23/1f5a9ad8-aafb-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html|title=Just Asking: Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=April 23, 2014|author=Joe Heim}}
{{LCAuth|no00088459|Natasha D. Trethewey|5|}}
[https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/natasha-trethewey Natasha Trethewey Poems and Profile at Poets.org]
[https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/natasha-trethewey/ Biography and Poems of Natasha Trethewey at Americanpoems.com]
[https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/f7kt0 Natasha Trethewey papers, 1942-2013]