African American history in Natasha Trethewey’s “Native Guard”

The article presents interpretations of the poetry collection “Native Guard” American writer Natasha Trethewey — Pulitzer Prize winner (2007), and Poet Laureate (2012–2014). Through lens African Critical Race studies, Trethewey’s is analyzed as artistic Civil War reconstruction which writes Louisiana Native Guard regiments into national history. Utilizing wide range poetic forms in collections “Domestic Work” (2000), “Bellocq’s Ophelia” (2002), “Thrall” (2012), ekphrastic poetry, verse-novellas, epistolary poems, rhymed free verse sonnets, dramatic monologues, (2006) experiments with classical genres villanelle (“Scenes from a Documentary History Mississippi”), ghazal (“Miscegenation”), pantoum (“Incident”), elegy (“Elegy for Guard”), linear palindrome (“Myth”), pastoral (“Pastoral”), sonnet (the ten poems crown sequence Guard”). Following modernist literary canon, transforms traditional forms, infusing blues sonnets (“Graveyard Blues”), experimenting blank (“What Body Can Tell”). In first part Guard”, poet pays homage to her mother who was married white man 1960s when interracial marriage illegal. book demonstrates intersections private memories mother, childhood personal encounters racial oppression South, “poeticized” episodes history presented perspective freed slave soldier Guard, Nathan Daniels. core devoted 1st, 2nd 3rd Union Army formed 1862, are variably combine formal features European poetics. composed unrhymed journal entries, dated 1862 1865, they foreground reflections warrior on historical focusing Guard’s involvement military duty. aspects, achieves effect continuity by “binding” together each repeating final line poem at beginning following one sequence. Though, does not fully comply rigid structure form, narrative aims restoring role soldiers commemorating Guard. synthesizes two strains – historical, accentuating issues South. experience biracial Southerner, via polemics Fugitives, displays that Rights Act has eliminated inequality racism. extensive experimentation style opens up prospects further investigation writer’s methods collections, autobiographical prose, nonfiction.