Even as I think of myself as a ‘rememberer,’ I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
It’s so necessary to try and record the cultural memory of people. To set it down for generations to come. To better understand where we are headed. The problem is, a good portion of what we choose to remember is about willed forgetting. Which we all do, I believe, to protect ourselves from what is too difficult. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from my South, be outside it, to understand it. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
I’ve been telling my students, ‘Imitate, imitate.’ And they say, ‘Well, what if I plagiarize, or what if I’m not original? I want to be myself.’ And I always tell them, ‘Your self will shine through’… If you allow yourself to feel deeply and honestly, what you say won’t be like anyone else. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn’t think I could understand poetry; I didn’t think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
When kids look at broccoli, they call it ‘little trees,’ because they see it not just for the word ‘broccoli.’ They see it for what it looks like, the image. We, as adults, forget to think like that. We forget to think figuratively and have to be reminded. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
I love mystery novels… I love seeing the dramas played out in academic departments, particularly English departments. I started reading these when I was going up for tenure. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
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. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
In my own life, I believe it was an early education in poetical metaphor that helped me to grapple with and make sense of all the difficult and traumatic things that were to come. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
I think that as a poet, I am always concerned about history and baring witness to history. But so often, it’s through the research that I do, the reading. Natasha Trethewey Read Quote
