A stunning new gift edition of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry. Featuring a CD of the poems read by the author. Natasha Tretheweys elega...
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Feb 25, 2008
Lisa
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I'd already requested this book from the library when a friend of mine said she thought it was "ordinary," yet it's won the Pulitzer Prize. I was interested in exploring this possible discrepancy.
The book's language IS pretty simple, sometimes even simplistic, but Trethewey has written some skilled poems in form, including a ghazal. The poems includes some compelling content (interracial marriage in the civil-rights-era south, racism, the Louisiana Native Guard) that woul More...
The book's language IS pretty simple, sometimes even simplistic, but Trethewey has written some skilled poems in form, including a ghazal. The poems includes some compelling content (interracial marriage in the civil-rights-era south, racism, the Louisiana Native Guard) that woul More...
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Nov 02, 2007
Amanda
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Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard is (I swear) one of the BEST collections of poetry I have read in a long time.
This collection is seemingly simple. The language is clear, stripped down, and imagistic. The narratives are straightforward and very easy to follow, especially for those who don't read much poetry "because it is hard to understand."
But for those who LOVE poetry and understand it, Native Guard is virtually flawless. Each poem is layered in so many di More...
This collection is seemingly simple. The language is clear, stripped down, and imagistic. The narratives are straightforward and very easy to follow, especially for those who don't read much poetry "because it is hard to understand."
But for those who LOVE poetry and understand it, Native Guard is virtually flawless. Each poem is layered in so many di More...
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May 20, 2010
Danielle
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A beautiful set of poetry. I've never read anything by this author but in general, I love poems that tell intricate stories all on their own. Even though each poem was published separately (from what I can tell of the author's acknowledgments), every single one works cohesively with others and yet, manages to speak volumes about matters of prejudice, interracial relationships, mother-daughter bonds, and the importance of where one comes from. In all honesty though, it might be a while before rea
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Oct 15, 2009
Justin
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Do you know what I hate? I mean besides mayonnaise? I hate jazz "best-of's." Some record exec. will cobble together 13 of Coltrane's "greatest" hits and sell it at Target. You pop it in your car and bop around like you're hip. The tracks move from Blue Train to Pursuance and leave you wondering why Coltrane got all weird. Well, you're not hip, you're a sucker. Sure, the tracks are good. But, listen to them along with the rest of their sibling tracks on the original album
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Jul 21, 2007
I think this is Trethewey's strongest book yet, and I'm looking forward to her current book-in-progress. The combination of loss, historical poems interweaved closely with interracial identity and family memories in the childhood town where they all commingle is made even stronger by her use of form, which fascinates me more and more these days. The poem about cleaning her mother's house after her passing and trying to eat a fig from a tree in the front yard is breath-taking.
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Jan 22, 2012
Bonny
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I had to come back and read this again, something about it gets under your skin and remains. She is fearless. She weaves her own personal story among stories of the nation's past, tackling issues of love, death, abuse, interracial marriage, racial identity, racism, civil war and Reconstruction to name a few. Each poem is a strong voice in a larger conversation, and all packaged together make a powerful impression.
What is Evidence
Not the fleeting bruises she'd cover
w More...
What is Evidence
Not the fleeting bruises she'd cover
w More...
Dec 16, 2011
Ramón
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This collection is haunting, filled with the paradoxical beauty and brutality of the South as experienced both historically and personally. In addition to the content, I love that many of her poems have more formal structure than the free verse that I'm used to reading, my favorite being the call and response of "Graveyard Blues". This not incredibly complex poetry, the vocabulary and form simple and precise. Nonetheless, it is extraordinarily lyrical, a pitch-perfect gospel chorus tha
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Sep 16, 2010
Karissa
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I loved this collection of poems. They varied in form and content, yet each was beautiful and imbued with a lush, lyrical sadness. The first sections dealing with her mother were heartbreaking; the second section of poems were more historical but no less poignant, as they dealt with the native guards, armies of black men fighting in the civil war who more often than not, died anonymous and thankless; the last section came back to her roots and her relationship with the south and with growing u
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Aug 12, 2011
Teresa
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4 and 1/2 stars
The first section of poems dealing with the author's mother (and her death) gets 5 stars from me. I loved the poems individually and as a whole. Whenever I read a poem, I read it at least twice. The second time is to let the words wash over me, as the first time the content is unfamiliar and I can only seem to focus at first on what the poem says and not how it sounds and flows. These poems were impressive during both readings.
Perhaps because I loved t More...
The first section of poems dealing with the author's mother (and her death) gets 5 stars from me. I loved the poems individually and as a whole. Whenever I read a poem, I read it at least twice. The second time is to let the words wash over me, as the first time the content is unfamiliar and I can only seem to focus at first on what the poem says and not how it sounds and flows. These poems were impressive during both readings.
Perhaps because I loved t More...
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Nov 08, 2011
Sue
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This is a wonderful book of poems. The author writes of black regiments during the Civil War, her experiences as a mixed race child in Mississippi, her parents' marriage. It's a short but packed volume and I highly recommend it to poetry lovers and general readers who would like to try poetry.
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Oct 15, 2010
Hattie
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Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey is filled with poems about American History and Natasha Tretheway's personal history. I asked myself this question. Is it possible to separate myself from history larger than life or is it a part of my smaller world? Ms. Tretheway gives a quote spoken by Frederick Douglass. "If this war is to be forgotten, I ask in the name of all things sacred what shall men remember?" I think my question has been answered by an ancestor who is still alive in my soul
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Jun 13, 2009
Johnny
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This is an amazing collection. I am a huge fan of Trethewey now! I read this in preparation for a class I'm teaching on the Pulitzer winners of the past few years; Native Guard won the poetry award in 2007. This collection focuses on the emotions and thoughts surrounding Trethewey's mother's death and her upbringing in Mississippi as the daughter of an interracial couple during the civil rights era. The poems cover some heavy ground, but all of them are truly wonderful. She does some really
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Aug 10, 2011
Yune
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Lovely yet stark.
I have friends who tell me that music albums are cohesive works of art and that buying single tracks loses the full effect. I'd argue the same for this collection. These poems intertwine in theme and content, reaching to the historical past and into the poet's own life story, bringing old sorrows in tune with individual ones, all in a mix of forms.
"Myth" just ripped me apart. It's a hinge poem, where you read the lines in one order and then backward More...
I have friends who tell me that music albums are cohesive works of art and that buying single tracks loses the full effect. I'd argue the same for this collection. These poems intertwine in theme and content, reaching to the historical past and into the poet's own life story, bringing old sorrows in tune with individual ones, all in a mix of forms.
"Myth" just ripped me apart. It's a hinge poem, where you read the lines in one order and then backward More...
Dec 01, 2010
Robert
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Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
The problem with Natasha Trethewey's third collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2007, is the same as the problem with her second collection, Bellocq's Ophelia, which did not: it's too darn short. That's not something I say about many books of poetry; a single-author collection that stretches more than ninety pages or thereabouts tends to wear. But there are a handful of currently-working poets whose every book is More...
The problem with Natasha Trethewey's third collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2007, is the same as the problem with her second collection, Bellocq's Ophelia, which did not: it's too darn short. That's not something I say about many books of poetry; a single-author collection that stretches more than ninety pages or thereabouts tends to wear. But there are a handful of currently-working poets whose every book is More...
Nov 14, 2009
Jason
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I really like the forms that Trethewey uses in her poetry. She isn't afraid to use rhyme and repetition along with her mainly free verse poems. Her subject matter is about her identity--her race, her heritage, her upbringing in the South. Some of these poems explore the Native Guard, a group of black soldiers from the South who fought on the North's side of the Civil War. This book is confessional and historical. I want to read more of her poetry.
Dec 28, 2007
Gray
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I read this book because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry this year and I had read good things about it. Trethewey is half-black and half-white and these two backgrounds play into the poem, but not in the way I'm used to. The first several poems are about her mothers death and the loneliness she feels, but the book begins to pick up in the second section. In that section she writes a longer poem through the persona of a soldier in an all black Union regiment in the Civil War - it's in the fo
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Mar 24, 2010
Phoebe
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Discovered this book in the take-a-book-leave-a-book pile in my workplace. It took me a while to get into Trethewey's understated tone, but once I got the gist, whoa. Dark and to the point, these poems aren't interested in protecting the reader through clever turns of phrase. Through them, I learned new facts pertaining to the violent history of race in the US -not just in context, but in emotion, and not without humor.
May 04, 2009
Emily
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Tretheway couples sonnet and blues song, national past and personal present, and most importantly, poetry and political conscience. To those struggling with questions of racial identity, those who love the South, and Faulkner fans, I think you'll find the contradictory sense of home and diaspora very familiar but retold in a new and haunting way. She is an excellent reader and speaker, and spending an evening listening to her read is certainly among one of the best nights of this year, if not o
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Mar 25, 2011
Libby
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This Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poems contain heart-breaking poems about the death of Trethewey's mother, living in Mississippi as a mixed race child when miscegenation was illegal, and about the Native Guard, a regiment of black Union soldiers during the Civil War. Trethewey's books are usually based on themes rather than just a collection of unrelated poems.
Jan 06, 2011
Katina
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Stunning is one of the many words that come to mind when reading this book. Though it is short and could be read within 20 mins (if that), doing so would be like trying to cram a savory steak down your throat for the sake of eating it one bite (a terrible idea). Reading Native Guard was (for me)a hypnotic experience, like drifting in and out of consciousness. I completely loved it and it comes as no surprise to me that it is a Pulitzer prize winner.
Feb 01, 2008
Lynecia
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Excellent!
At first I got this short tome, started reading it and put it down. It lost my attention, b.c I found the language to fractured, too inelegant and blah! I expected the earth to move b.c after all, it did win a PULITZER.
It sat on my nightstand for a couple of weeks. Even after listening to her recite some poetry on an NPR podcast, I still let it sit. Finally, yesterday, I took it up and went back to the beginning, even re-reading the book jacket. I found that I even misund More...
At first I got this short tome, started reading it and put it down. It lost my attention, b.c I found the language to fractured, too inelegant and blah! I expected the earth to move b.c after all, it did win a PULITZER.
It sat on my nightstand for a couple of weeks. Even after listening to her recite some poetry on an NPR podcast, I still let it sit. Finally, yesterday, I took it up and went back to the beginning, even re-reading the book jacket. I found that I even misund More...
Jul 14, 2010
Emma
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Saw her last year, and, while reading this, I kept hearing her voice - all glass edge and heart. You know how sometimes you buy a Pulitzer winner and are surprised at how unremarkable it is? Not this time. This book brims with poetic tradition and invention, history and its constant reshaping. So very fine...
May 11, 2011
Mia
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A very good book, exceptional writing, well mannered...but something is missing; I suspect that something is emotional liberty. The lines are so tautly woven that the voice comes across distant, almost clinical. I don't know, I'll have to think about it some more. Best poem in the book is Native Guard.
Sep 29, 2009
Cat
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Interesting poems - I felt they were a little generic (all about her mom) until a closer reading showed more of her sentiment towards her life. A very interesting look at the relationship she felt for a women she seems to have seen as weak. An interesting way to memorialize your mother.
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Feb 19, 2009
Erin
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I didn't know I liked this book of poetry as well as I did until I started discussing it with people and realized it is sooo layered. I don't know that I'll not sell it back to the bookstore, but it's worth at least one good read-through.
Feb 07, 2009
Lauren
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This is the kind of book that should be assigned for summer reading. It speaks to so many facets of American history and society. I want to pour over it and return to it again and again. It spoke to me as a Southerner, but I think there is something for everyone to respond to in this remarkable book of poetry. I want to read everything by her.
Sep 28, 2009
Whitney
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This collection was really interesting in the fact that Trethewey is remembering things that are lost- her mother as well as certain people in history (particularly the civil war). Powerful images and well structured.
Feb 08, 2011
Beth
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Trethewey's Native Guard is absolutely beautiful. Her poems are clear as crystal and full of grace. I have already read this one several times through. I'm looking forward to reading her other works as well.
Aug 01, 2009
Niel
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Lots of well-made poems. Best poem in the book, I think now, is MYTH. My problem with her is that she doesn't seem to have her own voice yet. Feels like student exercises (but great student exercises).
Dec 31, 2008
Donna
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Although a formalist poet, Tretheway's book is wonderfully accessible, lyrical, and layered. The title poem "Native Guard" is an incredibly beautiful and powerful "Crown of Sonnets." Wonderful!
