Course Description

Instructor: Liza Davis, PhD

A former United States Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. In two of her short poetry collections Native Guard and Thrall, she examines the intersections between her experience growing up biracial in the rural South and the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century men, women, and children marginalized because of their skin color. Whether finding layered meanings in colonial Mexico’s Casta paintings or in the narrative of an escaped slave in the Union army’s first African-American regiment, in her mother’s first train ride on the “Southern Crescent” or in her father’s fly fishing, Trethewey enthralls her readers.

Students will need to purchase copies of both Native Guard and Thrall. Used copies in good condition are available from ABE books (www.abebooks.com), with free shipping, for $5.00-$6.00 each. New copies are available at amazon.com for $10.00-$11.00 each.