Summary Of Trethewey's Poem 'Native Guard'

Stanza two of the poem takes time to reveal what each individual notch or marking on the tally stick represents in their actual lives. The most intricate carving described represents the day of their

Native Guard is a poem that is built on a lot of passion and precision that makes this entire book of poetry stand out. From the beginning with the elusive imagery and foreshadowing of her childhood and her mother’s life we are easily engulfed in the lifestyle of being born in the south. The imagery continues on in the new memory of the pinnacle time of slavery and the Civil War, which shows the true nature of the south through repetition and metaphoric sentences of many gruesome and remorseful scenes.

The famous African American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, grew up on the south-side of Chicago. She paved the way for many female African American woman today. In the The African American Experience textbook there is two amazing poems written by her. One is titled “The Sonnet-Ballad” and the other is titled “We Real Cool”. On the surface these two poems seem to have simple means, but if you dig under the surface there is more than meets the eye. Each poem has the three component that make a poem according to Stephen Henderson. Each poem has a theme, structure, and saturation. Each component is presented in a different way. Its presented in a way that makes the poem more affective in its message, and that is the reason why these poems are so

Frances E.W. Harper and James Whitfield are two of the most influential anti-slavery poets of all time. Both individuals use poetry as a form of resistance and as a way to express themselves during a time of great racial tension. Their poems reach out to many different audiences, shedding light on racial injustices that were present in America. Harper’s and Whitfield’s poetry, like many other works that were written during this time, help us to better comprehend the effects of slavery on African Americans.

Obviously, this entire poem was a flashback of the authors childhood and what she went through growing up during such a changing time in American history. This flashback occurs during the integration period, where African Americans and whites started to attend school together. Even though laws banned segregation and racism, there was still racial tension that not only affected blacks, but those that were biracial. During this time, if one has at least one drop of black blood in them, they are considered black. In American, being black was a bad thing because blacks are the ones that are oppressed. African Americans were and still are treated like they are less than, based simply on the color of their skin. Tretheway had a valid reason for wanting to disown her black side because she wanted to be treated with the same respect as those who were not black. Tretheway had an opportunity to lie about who she was since she had such light skin, and she took it. But as she reflects back on what she went through, she realizes that she should have accepted who she was, no matter how others would view her. After looking back on her past, she was able to recognize the importance of self-acceptance and how it is more important than getting acceptance from those her. Natasha Tretheway used her writing ability and experiences to share the experiences she went through to let readers know that they are not

The reflection of each poet's childhood is displayed within these lines helping to build a tone for the memories of each narrator.

symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide

Trethewey’s parents divorced when she was six years old. She spent the schoolyear with her mother in Atlanta, Georgia. During the summers, she split her time with her mother and father, who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. While with her father, in a time where segregation was still acceptable, she could often pass for white and was treated differently than when she was with her mother. Growing up, she came to love literature and eventually attended the University old, her mother died. She was murdered by her second husband, then her ex-husband. Trethewey then turned to writing to deal with her

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

In her poem, “White Lies,” Trethewey’s theme in the story is discrimination and her struggle with her personal identity in America. Being born bi-racial, Trethewey explores racial identity that she experienced during her childhood. She was born in 1966 in Mississippi to a black mother and a white father. At this time, interracial marriages were not legal in Mississippi and were seen as shameful in society. Trethewey was very light skinned and had the desire to be white. The poem delivers the author’s experience with bigotry while living in the South (Bentley). This created an atmosphere of a racist society where the white community was superior over the African Americans. Growing up during this period, Trethewey felt like a lost little girl struggling with trying to find herself. In The Washington Post, Trethewey said, “Poetry showed me that I wasn’t alone” (Trethewey). This meant that writing poetry helped her to realize that she was not alone in this world of judgment, there were others facing the same issues that she was. The tone of her poem was sadness because of the prejudices she faced. To her, poetry was a place that could hold her grief (Bentley). Throughout her poem, “White Lies,” she desired to tell lies about who she was and how she lived. Her childhood was filled with thoughts and hopes of being white instead of being bi-racial. She states, “The lies I could tell, / when I was growing up” (Trethewey l. 1-2). These lines imply that she could easily lie to cover

significance of this section in the poem is the underlying relationship between what the narrater

The theme of double consciousness pervades the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Reasons for expressing double-consciousness stem from historical, cultural, and psychological realities facing African-Americans realities that continue to define the sociocultural landscape in the United States. In Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage," the opening line is "What is Africa to me?" The narrator ponders what it means to be of African heritage, especially given the astounding number of generations separating ancestral ties from life in twentieth century America. Moreover, slavery tore apart families and communities, rendering African identity into a fragmented entity and African-American identity even more inchoate. The Harlem Renaissance represented a revolutionary shift in the way that the sons, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters of slaves begun to conceptualize the African-American culture. African-American identity is naturally one of double- or even multiple-consciousness, and this consciousness is conveyed throughout the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.

Perhaps the most basic and essential function of poetry is to evoke a particular response in the reader. The poet,

In the poem she says “I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide”, and “I am the dream and the hope of the slave”. She is saying that because she is black woman and has to face problems; it has made her stronger. She has risen above and has become the person the slaves had hoped to become one day. Just because she is a minority doesn’t mean she can’t be proud of her accomplishments.

In the ninth verse, the poet gives a symbolic dimension to a blade; “There Hyde before he had beaten into prose; That noble blade the Muses buckled on”(v9-10). Here, the alliteration in “b” reinforces the musicality of the verse. In the verses twelve and thirteen, the poet paints a portrait of Douglas Hyde and John Synge. The full rhyme “pose” (v11) and “those” (v13) associates the two characters. The repetition of the words “There” and “that” in the stanza emphasizes the descriptive dimension of the verses (v9, v10, v11, v13). The musicality of the stanza is enhanced by the internal rhyme of the verse 14; “Impetuous men, Shawe-Taylor and Hugh Lane”. In the third stanza, these literary figures are compared to swallows; “They came like swallows and like swallows went” (v17). This imagery of the swallows echoes with the first verse of the poem. Lady Gregory’s depiction of a poet's guide is emphasized by an enjambment between the verse eighteen and nineteen. Finally, Coole Park is described as the heart of artistic creation through a comparison to a compass point attracting “half a dozen” of poets in creative effervescence