Myth

Natasha Trethewey was the first poet to receive the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for best debut book by an African American poet. This prestigious honor helped to solidify Trethewey’s significance as a poet who was able to express the concerns of African Americans. The themes of Domestic Work—the history of African American people, the working class, the function of memory, and the loss of loved ones—continues throughout her other collections. In 2006, she wrote Native Guard, which looks closely at the history of the Native Guards of Louisiana and Black troops in the American Civil War, as well as her own personal experience, particularly those challenged by the murder of her mother. The collection was lauded for its honesty regarding life and racial tension in the South and for Trethewey’s craftsmanship. This collection won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, with Trethewey being only the fourth African American to win this high honor. This also was influential in her being appointed to the position of Poet Laureate. Her poetic ability to negotiate liminal spaces—moving from myth to reality, from historical to autobiographical, from past to present, from segregation to inclusion—is something Trethewey is known for and something that appears here in “Myth.