Thrall: Poems [Hardcover]

...actually, 20 years after it was first made. A standard aphorism in the publishing industry is that more people write poetry than read it. Poetry is a hard sell. And I must admit, I've read very little, since those obligatory college courses where I was busy sorting out "iambic pentameter," and such. I knew what it meant for the test, but it has been `Greek' to me ever since. So, when this selection appeared on my Vine offerings, I saw a chance to partially remediate one more character flaw.

Natasha Trethewey was appointed to the position of US Poet Laureate in June, 2012, and will soon take up residency in Washington, DC. The position has been previously held by such poets as Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Frost, and James Dickey (to prove you don't have to be a "Bob."). The selection of Trethewey's work contained in this volume in quite short, but it is richer than a chocolate (as it were) soufflé in terms of the density of thought, and feeling, expressed uniquely and succinctly. And the subject matter is topical: a historical look at the relationship between the races, often on the most intimate basis. Certain of her poems carefully examine the depiction of race by certain artists, particularly Spanish ones. The cover has been aptly chosen to convey this: it is Juan Rodriguez Juarez's "Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo." Tretheway says that the look in the woman's eye is conveying: "see what we have created." Trethewey is currently a professor at Emory, in Atlanta, but her interest in this subject is not exclusively academic. Her father is white, her mother was black (she was killed by her second husband). Her parents were married in Mississippi, when "miscegenation" was still illegal, and therefore her mother's race on the marriage certificate is "colored," her father's, "Canadian"! Several of her poems relate to her relationship with her parents, and what it personally has meant to be a "mélange."

"Thrall" is the poem that lends its name to the collection. It concerns Juan de Pareja, a Spanish painter who spent much of his life as a slave of perhaps the most famous Spanish painter, Diego Velazquez. The title is appropriate: "thrall" is an old Norse word for an "unfree servant." It would be useful to refer to a collection of Velazquez's paintings, such as Velazquez: Museo del Prado 23 enero/31 marzo 1990 (Spanish Edition) as one reads some of the poems, for example "The Mulata" on page 27, which describes the painting of the same name, on page 59 of the cited work on his paintings. "The Enlightenment" is also a great poem which, all too appropriately for the subject theme, looks at Thomas Jefferson, and his relationship (non-relationship?) with Sally Hemings, who, as the author points out, is a "quadroon," a word we don't hear much about anymore. The poem concludes with Trethewey's acerbic and playful wit: she is visiting Monticello with her father, and at one point whispers to him, "This is where we split up. I'll head around to the back."

There are other formulations that I'll remember, such as "the syntax of sloughing... a snake's curved form," and "If I tell you such terms were born in the Enlightenment's hallowed rooms, that the wages of empire is myopia..."

And even a line aimed at the heart of one who picked up a poetry book after a 40 plus year hiatus, a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Vespertina Cognitio": "...the knowledge of man is an evening knowledge..." Better late than never. 5-stars.

[ Note: I received an email from a far-more-knowledgeable-than-I English teacher who knew that Natasha Trethewey's parents were married in Ohio, where it was legal, but that the marriage was still considered illegal in Mississippi... although the "problem" of state lines, and "miscegenation" has now been laid to rest, it lives on with gay marriages. Will any of those be resolved with the "Canadian" race?]

The theme of racial mixing throughout this collection of poems works when the poet describes her own personal, intimate contact with this defining characteristic of her identity. When I think it comes across as a bit heavy-handed is when she describes the bigger historical picture. I much prefer her personal poems here than her historical ones. For example, I love the poem "Mano Prieta" when she describes a random encounter of her parents (one white, one "colored") captured in a photograph. This is her personal history and she expresses it in a lovely way. While the historical and cultural themes are interesting throughout the book, they ocassionally become a bit obvious and one has to ask, Why is this poetry special? Why isn't this simply a cultural essay? I'm on the fence about whether or not to explore this poet's works in more detail, but given the powerful personal poetry, I just may.

2007 Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey gifts us with this rather extraordinary collection of poems that explore relationships between parent and child in a marriage of two people from different cultures: Trethewey is the mixed race progeny of a white father (a poet) and a darker skinned Mexican mother. This platform provides a complex stage setting for discussions of heritage, depth of cultural bonds and influences, and a particularly fine examination of differences between peoples from different vantages. And she manages to do all of this with elegant writings about art - especially colonial Mexican art - and other aspects that bring us to a closer understanding of others.

Though her poems benefit from the gentle manner in which she places her words on a page, such placement is restricted by the format of a reviewer's note. But the only way to truly appreciate just how wondrous is the poetry of Natasha Trethewey is to quote some of her work:

Torna atrás

The unknown artist has rendered the father a painter and so
we see him at this work: painting a portrait of his wife -
their dark child watching nearby, a servant grinding colors
in the corner. The woman poses just beyond his canvas
and cannot see her likeness, her less than mirror image
coming to life beneath his hand. He has rendered her
homely, so unlike the woman we see in this scene, dressed
in late-century fashion, a `chicqueador' - mark of beauty
in the shape of a crescent moon - affixed to her temple.
If I say his painting is unfinished, that he has yet to make her
beautiful, to match the elegant sweep of her hair,
the graceful tilt of her head, has yet to adorn her dress
with lace and trim, it is only one way to see it. You might see,
instead, that the artist - perhaps to show his own skill -
has made the father a dilettante, incapable of capturing
his wife's beauty. Or, that he cannot see it: his mind's eye
reducing her to what he's made as if to reveal the illusion
immanent in her flesh. If you consider the century's mythology
of the body - that a dark spot marked the genitals of anyone
with African blood - you might see how the black moon
on her white face recalls it: the `roseta' she passes to her child
marking him `torna atrás'. If I tell you such terms were born
in the Enlightenment's hallowed rooms, that the wages of empire
is myopia, you might see the father's vision as desire embodied
in paint, this rendering of his wife born of need to see himself
as architect of Truth, benevolent patriarch, father of uplift
ordering his domain. And you might see why, to understand
my father, I look again and again at this painting: how it is
that a man could love - and so diminish what he loves.

And as operatically magnificent is her writing that we forget she can be brief and in the moment as in the following poem:

Fouled

From the next room I hear my father's voice,
a groan at first, a sound so sad I think he must be
reliving a catalog of things lost: all the dead
come back to stand ringside, the glorious body
of his youth - a light heavyweight, fight ready
and glistening - that beauty I see now in pictures.
Looking into the room, I half imagine I'll find him
shadowboxing the dark, arms and legs twitching
as a dog runs in sleep. Tonight, I've had to help him
into bed - stumbling up the stairs, his arm a weight
on my shoulders so heavy it nearly brought us down.
now his distress cracks open the night; he is calling
my name. I could wake him, tell him it's only a dream,
that I am here. Here is the threshold I do not cross:
a sliver of light through the doorway finds his tattoo,
the anchor on his forearm, tangled in its chain.

Natasha Trethewey is wise, talented and sensitive and is capable of producing massive room filling paintings of poems as easily and with as much facility as she is with brief thoughts such as this last poem. She is probably one of today's most important poets. Grady Harp, July 12