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Natasha Trethewey Quotes

Poet

Natasha Trethewey is an American poet known for her works that often explore themes of race, history, and identity, winning widespread acclaim from readers and critics.

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All Poetry Poem Loss Death Grief Left Memories Men Past Way African Americans Black Born Death Of A Mother Figs Firsts Forgetting Home Kind Knowledge

Famous Natasha Trethewey Quotes

“How not to think of loss, how it takes hold and grows: like lacuna snails, slow and deliberate, on a reed? Why is everything I see the past I've tried to forget?”

Past Poetry Growth Loss Grief Poem Forgetting Slowness

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“How can I see anything but this: how trauma lives in the sea of my body, awash in the waters of forgetting.”

Poetry Poem Trauma Forgetting

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“Before the war, they were happy, he said, quoting our textbook. (This was senior-year history class.) The slaves were clothed, fed, and better off under a master's care. I watched the words blur on the page. No one raised a hand, disagreed. Not even me.”

Poetry Education Learning Poem Slavery African Americans Blacks Teachers Textbooks Slaves

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“After Your Death First, I emptied the closets of your clothes, threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised from your touch, left empty the jars you bought for preserves. The next morning, birds rustled the fruit trees, and later when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem, I found it half eaten, the other side already rotting, or—like another I plucked and split open—being taken from the inside: a swarm of insects hollowing it. I’m too late, again, another space emptied by loss. Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Poem Mourning Figs Tidying

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“This is how the past interrupts our lives, all of it entering the same doorway--like the hole in the trunk of my neighbor's tree: at once a natural shelter, haven for small creatures, but also evidence of injury, an entrance for decay.”

Past Poetry Poem Decay Shelter Trees Injuries

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“I'd follow my father from book to book, gathering citations, listen as he named--like a field guide to Virginia-- each flower and tree and bird as if to prove a man's pursuit of knowledge is greater than his shortcomings, the limits of his vision.”

Poetry Nature Vision Knowledge Poem Limits Flowers Trees Birds Shortcomings

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“When I think of this now, I see how the past holds us captive, its beautiful ruin etched on the mind's eye”

Past Poetry Poem Captivity Ruin

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“What does it mean to be safe in the world?”

World Poetry Poem Safety

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“you learned from a Korean poet in Seoul: that one does not bury the mother's body in the ground but in the chest, or--like you-- you carry her corpse on your back.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Poem Mourning Mothers Death Of A Mother

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“I begin to see our lives are like this--we take what we need of light.”

Life Light Poetry Poem Lives

Book:Monument: Poems New and Selected

Source: Monument: Poems New and Selected

“The act of making poetry is an act of hope.”

Poetry Poetry Is

Author:Natasha Trethewey

About the Author

Born: April 26, 1966
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 31

Books & Sources

Monument: Poems New and SelectedRelated source material

Thrall: PoemsRelated source material

Native GuardRelated source material

Bellocq's Ophelia: PoemsRelated source material

Memorial Drive: A Daughter's MemoirRelated source material

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