Native Guard

( 2 )

All Available Formats + Editions

——

$10.16

NOOK Book

——

$10.16

Native Guard (eBook) Pub. Date: 11/6/2007 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
$0.99

$11.75

Paperback

$0.99

$11.75

Native Guard Pub. Date: 5/8/2007 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
$2.09

——

Hardcover

$2.09

——

Native Guard: Poems (New Edition) Pub. Date: 3/6/2006 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

Advertising

Overview

Through elegiac verse that honors her mother and tells of her own fraught childhood, Natasha Trethewey confronts the racial legacy of her native Deep South—where one of the first black regiments, the Louisiana Native Guards, was called into service during the Civil War. Trethewey's resonant and beguiling collection is a haunting conversation between personal experience and national history.

Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Editorial Reviews

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Trethewey's style is reserved, even cautious, though her subjects are emotionally charged, even violent. This creates an interesting dichotomy, especially in poems such as "Pastoral" with its touchy image of Trethewey confronting the great white Southern poets -- Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren and others -- while in blackface. Though this is her third book, Trethewey is still perfecting her voice and may have only scratched the surface of her remarkable talent.
— The washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Trethewey (Domestic Work) draws on the life of her deceased mother and on the history of Mississippi, where the poet and her mother's family grew up, to limn a multiracial South and her own multiracial heritage. One poem tries to preserve her mother's memory ("certain the sounds I make/ are enough to call someone home"); the title poem's set of linked sonnets, where the last line of each one becomes the first line of the next, presents black Union soldiers who "keep/ white men as prisoners-rebel soldiers,/ would-be masters." A pantoun remembers the night Trethewey's family discovered a burning cross on her lawn; the concluding poem condenses the poet's mixed-and compelling-feelings about "Mississippi, state that made a crime// of me-mulatto, half-breed, native-/ in my native land, this place they'll bury me." (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews

KLIATT

AGERANGE: Ages 15 to adult.

“You can get there from here, though / there’s no going home. / Everywhere you go will be somewhere / you’ve never been.” With these provocative lines, Trethewey opens this slender collection and subconsciously sums up our reading experience at once. In a mere 26 poems she generates a convincing physical presence of the South, a poignant reflection on the Civil War and a personal contemporary world forever tied to it. As multifaceted and encompassing as this material is, however, her presentation is at the heart of this volume’s success. Perhaps because it is couched in a clear, disarmingly simple narration, Trethewey’s lyrical subtlety is both effective and surprising. “She is leaving behind / the dirt roads of Mississippi, the film / of red dust around her ankles, the thin / whistle of wind through the floorboards / of the shotgun house, the very idea of home.” And, despite her deep rooting in the perplexing concrete of place, history and her relationship to it, she transcends that world to challenge the indescribable, the unknowable. “What matters is context-- / the side of the road, or what my mother wanted / something I still can’t name: what, kneeling, / my face behind my hands, I might ask of God.” Native Guard, Trethewey’s third volume, attests to the many honors bestowed upon her, testifies to the skills and sensitivities of her artistic abilities. This is a strong example of what contemporary poetry can be. Reviewer: James Beschta
March 2008 (Vol. 42, No.2)

Library Journal

Inaugural winner of the Cave Caen Poetry Prize, Trethewey uses her third collection to explore Southern history, focusing her steadfast prose on African Americans mustered into the Union Army. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780618872657
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: 5/8/2007
Pages: 64
Sales rank: 275,338
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.25 (h) x 0.19 (d)

Meet the Author

Natasha Trethewey is the author of two previously published collections, Belloq's Ophelia and Domestic Work. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, she was the recipient of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Grolier Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing at Emory University.

	Theories of time and space	1
	The southern crescent	5
	Genus Narcissus	7
	Graveyard blues	8
	What the body can say	9
	Photograph : ice storm, 1971	10
	What is evidence	11
	Letter	12
	After your death	13
	Myth	14
	At dusk	15
	Pilgrimage	19
	Scenes from a documentary history of Mississippi	21
1	King Cotton, 1907
2	Glyph, Aberdeen 1913
3	Flood
4	You are late
	Native guard	25
	Again, the fields	31
	Pastoral	35
	Miscegenation	36
	My mother dreams another country	37
	Southern history	38
	Blond	39
	Southern gothic	40
	Incident	41
	Providence	42
	Monument	43
	Elegy for the native guards	44
	South	45

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3

( 2 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(2)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines

Tell the world what you think of this product.

Add Recommendations

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

- HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
- Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
- Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
- Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
- Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
- Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
- Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
- See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.

Anonymous

Posted October 10, 2011

No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous

Posted October 9, 2011

No text was provided for this review.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble