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Quote by Natasha Trethewey

“The experience of poetry could bring my mother back to me. Poetry offers a different kind of solace - here on earth.”

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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. more

“My obsessions stay the same - historical memory and historical erasure. I am particularly interested in the Americas and how a history that is rooted in colonialism, the language and iconography of empire, disenfranchisement, the enslavement of peoples, and the way that people were sectioned off because of blood.”

People Way Language Memories Blood Historical Obsession Empires Rooted Colonialism Enslavement Iconography Disenfranchisement

Author:Natasha Trethewey

“In the early 1970s in Atlanta, I attended what had formerly been an all-white school but had become a black school after integration and white flight. Perhaps because of this, the teachers created a curriculum that included a focus on African American literature and history year-round, not just in February.”

Years School Literature Black White Focus Teacher Rounds Flight African American Integration Curriculum February Atlanta American Literature

Author:Natasha Trethewey

“I used to come out here every Fourth of July as a child to picnic and to swim on the island, to tour the fort and wander through it. And all of that time, I never knew anything about the presence of black soldiers on the island. And so, for me, this was a way of trying to tell another history, a lost or a forgotten or a little-known history about these black soldiers who played an important part in American history.” Trethewey said. Coincidentally, she was born “exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866.”

“My own journey in becoming a poet began with memory - with the need to record and hold on to what was being lost. One of my earliest poems, Give and Take, was about my Aunt Sugar, how I was losing her to her memory loss.”

Needs Giving Lost Memories My Own Loss Records Journey Poet Becoming Losing Sugar Aunt Give And Take Memory Loss Lost Ones Losing Her

Author:Natasha Trethewey

“I teach a lecture course on American poetry to as many as 150 students. For a lot of them, its their only elective, so this is their one shot. Theyll take the Russian Novel or American Poetry, so I want to give them the high points, the inescapable poets.”

Want Giving Courses Teach Novel Students Poet Shots Lectures American Poetry High Points

Author:Robert Hass

“Not to make too much of a claim for poetry, but this is a question that goes to the moral heart of the business of any art: How do you see the world, and what right do you have to see the world in the way that you do?”

World Way Heart Art Moral Too Much Claims

Author:Robert Hass

“Images are not quite ideas, they are stiller than that, with less implication outside themselves. And they are not myth, they do not have the explanatory power; they are nearer to pure story. Nor are they always metaphors; they do not say this is that, they say this is.”

Ideas Stories Pure Metaphor Myth Implications

Author:Robert Hass

“There's a terrible sense of dread filtering across America at the moment and it's not simply because of the continuing fear of terrorism and the fact that the nation is at war. It's more frightening than that. It grows out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how to drive.”

Source: Promises Betrayed: Waking Up from the American Dream

“I admit that I am hopelessly hooked on the printed newspaper. I love turning the pages and the serendipity of stumbling across a piece of irresistible information or a photograph that I wasnt necessarily intending to read.”

Pieces Information Pages Photograph Newspapers Printed Irresistible Hooked Stumbling Serendipity

Author:Jill Abramson

“It took a while for me to grasp that my colleagues believe I have made an impact on the history of cinema.”

Believe Made Impact Cinema Colleagues

Author:Conrad Hall

Quote by Natasha Trethewey

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