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Domestic Work: Poems
Winner of the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award
In this widely celebrated debut collection of poems, Natasha Trethewey draws moving domestic portraits of families, past and present, caught in the act of earning a living and managing their households. Small moments taken from a labor-filled day--and rendered here in graceful and readable verse--reveal the equally hard emotional work of memory and forgetting, the extraordinary difficulty of trying to live with or without someone.
In this widely celebrated debut collection of poems, Natasha Trethewey draws moving domestic portraits of families, past and present, caught in the act of earning a living and managing their households. Small moments taken from a labor-filled day--and rendered here in graceful and readable verse--reveal the equally hard emotional work of memory and forgetting, the extraordinary difficulty of trying to live with or without someone.
70 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
13 people are currently reading
812 people want to read
About the author
Natasha Trethewey
41 books784 followersNatasha Trethewey is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in June 2012; she began her official duties in September. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and she is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi.
She is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she also directs the Creative Writing Program.
Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, on April 26, 1966, Confederate Memorial Day, to Eric Trethewey and Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, who were married illegally at the time of her birth, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws with Loving v. Virginia. Her birth certificate noted the race of her mother as "colored", and the race of her father as “Canadian”.
Trethewey's mother, a social worker, was part of the inspiration for Native Guard, which is dedicated to her memory. Trethewey's parents divorced when she was young and Turnbough was murdered in 1985 by her second husband, whom she had recently divorced, when Trethewey was 19 years old. Recalling her reaction to her mother's death, she said, "that was the moment when I both felt that I would become a poet and then immediately afterward felt that I would not. I turned to poetry to make sense of what had happened".
Natasha Trethewey's father is also a poet; he is a professor of English at Hollins University.
Trethewey earned her B.A. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. In May 2010 Trethewey delivered the commencement speech at Hollins University and was awarded an honorary doctorate. She had previously received an honorary degree from Delta State University in her native Mississippi.
Structurally, her work combines free verse with more structured, traditional forms like the sonnet and the villanelle. Thematically, her work examines "memory and the racial legacy of America". Bellocq's Ophelia (2002), for example, is a collection of poetry in the form of an epistolary novella; it tells the fictional story a mixed-race prostitute who was photographed by E. J. Bellocq in early 20th-century New Orleans.
The American Civil War makes frequent appearances in her work. Born on Confederate Memorial Day—exactly 100 years afterwards—Trethewey explains that she could not have "escaped learning about the Civil War and what it represented", and that it had fascinated her since childhood. For example, Native Guard tells the story of the Louisiana Native Guards, an all-black regiment in the Union Army, composed mainly of former slaves who enlisted, that guarded the Confederate prisoners of war.
On June 7, 2012, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, named her the 19th US Poet Laureate. Billington said, after hearing her poetry at the National Book Festival, that he was "immediately struck by a kind of classic quality with a richness and variety of structures with which she presents her poetry … she intermixes her story with the historical story in a way that takes you deep into the human tragedy of it." Newspapers noted that unlike most poets laureate, Trethewey is in the middle of her career. She was also the first laureate to take up residence in Washington, D.C., when she did so in January 2013. On May 14, 2014, Tretheway delivered her final lecture to conclude her second term as US Poet Laureate.
(from Wikipedia)
She is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she also directs the Creative Writing Program.
Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, on April 26, 1966, Confederate Memorial Day, to Eric Trethewey and Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, who were married illegally at the time of her birth, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws with Loving v. Virginia. Her birth certificate noted the race of her mother as "colored", and the race of her father as “Canadian”.
Trethewey's mother, a social worker, was part of the inspiration for Native Guard, which is dedicated to her memory. Trethewey's parents divorced when she was young and Turnbough was murdered in 1985 by her second husband, whom she had recently divorced, when Trethewey was 19 years old. Recalling her reaction to her mother's death, she said, "that was the moment when I both felt that I would become a poet and then immediately afterward felt that I would not. I turned to poetry to make sense of what had happened".
Natasha Trethewey's father is also a poet; he is a professor of English at Hollins University.
Trethewey earned her B.A. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. In May 2010 Trethewey delivered the commencement speech at Hollins University and was awarded an honorary doctorate. She had previously received an honorary degree from Delta State University in her native Mississippi.
Structurally, her work combines free verse with more structured, traditional forms like the sonnet and the villanelle. Thematically, her work examines "memory and the racial legacy of America". Bellocq's Ophelia (2002), for example, is a collection of poetry in the form of an epistolary novella; it tells the fictional story a mixed-race prostitute who was photographed by E. J. Bellocq in early 20th-century New Orleans.
The American Civil War makes frequent appearances in her work. Born on Confederate Memorial Day—exactly 100 years afterwards—Trethewey explains that she could not have "escaped learning about the Civil War and what it represented", and that it had fascinated her since childhood. For example, Native Guard tells the story of the Louisiana Native Guards, an all-black regiment in the Union Army, composed mainly of former slaves who enlisted, that guarded the Confederate prisoners of war.
On June 7, 2012, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, named her the 19th US Poet Laureate. Billington said, after hearing her poetry at the National Book Festival, that he was "immediately struck by a kind of classic quality with a richness and variety of structures with which she presents her poetry … she intermixes her story with the historical story in a way that takes you deep into the human tragedy of it." Newspapers noted that unlike most poets laureate, Trethewey is in the middle of her career. She was also the first laureate to take up residence in Washington, D.C., when she did so in January 2013. On May 14, 2014, Tretheway delivered her final lecture to conclude her second term as US Poet Laureate.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
November 24, 2020
EXPECTANT
Nights are hardest, the swelling,
tight and low (a girl), Delta heat,
and that woodsy silence a zephyred hush.
So how to keep busy? Wind the clocks,
measure out time to check the window,
or listen hard for his car on the road.
Small tasks done and undone, a floor
swept clean. She can fill a room
with a loud clear alto, broom-dance
right out the back door, her heavy footsteps
a parade beneath the stars. Honeysuckle
fragrant as perfume, nightlife
a steady insect hum. Still, she longs
for the Quarter—lights, riverboats churning,
the tinkle of ice in a slim bar glass.
Each night a refrain, its plain blue notes
carrying her, slightly swaying, home.
July 21, 2013
I've read some of these poems in anthologies, but hadn't read this whole collection. I just sat down and read it twice in a row and it is a book that I can imagine returning to again and again. I love the use of natural imagery and Tretheway's ability to invoke and insist upon the significance of the past.
March 27, 2007
I absolutely loved this book: the vignettes are superb.
You get so many vivid snapshots of life from the perspective of the women, from the perspective of the observer, and from outside perspectives.
She plays with form and makes a sonnet have life again. Its like form springs to life in her hands!
You get so many vivid snapshots of life from the perspective of the women, from the perspective of the observer, and from outside perspectives.
She plays with form and makes a sonnet have life again. Its like form springs to life in her hands!
February 12, 2021
Natasha Trethewey has skillfully crafted the ordinary into the extraordinary with her poetry collection Domestic Work.
The first two sections predominantly focus on black women’s lives throughout history, laying the most mundane tasks bare so you can feel the ache, longing, and injustice, along with the unwavering perseverance and strength. The vivid portrayal of each scene conjures clear images for the reader’s imagination. Despite these meticulous details, each poem is short and to the point, bursting with power and provoking thought.
The last two sections sing the heart of the author’s family and childhood. The emotions within these poems are palpable as Trethewey captures the innocence of a child observing the world around her and the grief over innocence lost.
Natasha Trethewey’s observations of the human spirit are insightful and spectacular, encapsulating historical fragments too easily taken for granted, reviving the memory of those who were often forgotten long before they left this earth. She honors her roots through her words and demonstrates a tremendous love for her family.
I highly recommend sampling some of Trethewey’s writing online. You might be one Google search away from your next favorite poem! Along with her poetry, I also recommend the haunting Memorial Drive, a memoir about the heartbreaking murder of Natasha Trethewey’s mother.
The first two sections predominantly focus on black women’s lives throughout history, laying the most mundane tasks bare so you can feel the ache, longing, and injustice, along with the unwavering perseverance and strength. The vivid portrayal of each scene conjures clear images for the reader’s imagination. Despite these meticulous details, each poem is short and to the point, bursting with power and provoking thought.
The last two sections sing the heart of the author’s family and childhood. The emotions within these poems are palpable as Trethewey captures the innocence of a child observing the world around her and the grief over innocence lost.
Natasha Trethewey’s observations of the human spirit are insightful and spectacular, encapsulating historical fragments too easily taken for granted, reviving the memory of those who were often forgotten long before they left this earth. She honors her roots through her words and demonstrates a tremendous love for her family.
I highly recommend sampling some of Trethewey’s writing online. You might be one Google search away from your next favorite poem! Along with her poetry, I also recommend the haunting Memorial Drive, a memoir about the heartbreaking murder of Natasha Trethewey’s mother.
May 13, 2020
Favorites -
"Three Photographs"
"Domestic Work 1937"
"Drapery Factory, Gulfport Mississippi, 1956"
"Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky"
"Flounder"
"History Lesson"
"Three Photographs"
"Domestic Work 1937"
"Drapery Factory, Gulfport Mississippi, 1956"
"Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky"
"Flounder"
"History Lesson"
November 4, 2012
I first read Tretheway a year ago, and I was not impressed. Domestic Work’s “obsession with the stereotypes of blackness,” as I responded back then, “feels disingenuous and distanced.” I faulted Tretheway’s narrative voice for inserting clichés into the minds of these black-people-in-pictures; for example, I felt that, “ ‘At the Owl Club’ is meant to be a triumphant moment for the black man in America, but instead, it comes off as ‘the black man’ stereotype who eats gumbo and only ever thinks ‘I’m-only-a-slave-but-at-least-I-got-paid,’ as if all blacks in the 1930’s had not one original thought in their heads (see ‘Naola Beauty Academy’ as well).” This upset me, especially as it came from a black woman, because I was looking for something poetically deeper that could connect me with humanity, and not just rehash the white-washed, stereotyped history of black America. Upon reading this collection again, though I still see these same issues, I do not think they are as prevalent as I made them seem. The third and fourth sections, while still playing at the ekphrastic style, are increasingly personal, and Tretheway’s diction and imagery are more diverse than I wanted to originally accept.
I may have changed my opinions of her content, but I still feel that this collection is unbalanced because the uncrafty, telling narration of her ekphrasis contrasts disharmoniously with her great sense of visual imagery. “Gesture of a Woman-in-Process” begins this trend: “In the foreground,” we are told what this picture depicts, even as the last line gives us a poignant “still in motion” showing-detail; it feels as if Tretheway didn’t know quite how to start the poem, so she wrote down some telling-facts and then evolved it into a showing-poem; while perhaps interesting on the level of authorial-poesis, I really have no desire to see the process of writing in a finalized poem… unless the poems means to do something of the sort. “Mythmaker” plays with this issue by not so much a use of “telling,” but a reliance on the second person and a forced inclusion of the reader; while the poem itself feels right, “we” and “you” kick me out of the piece faster than the stereotypes. In “History Lesson,” the reader gets “I am four in this photograph,” which is quite possibly the least interesting hook to a poem I’ve ever read… and yet it’s part of a poem that ends with dramatic impact. In all, I feel that while Domestic Work has the mind of a poet, it doesn’t quite have the style of one.
I may have changed my opinions of her content, but I still feel that this collection is unbalanced because the uncrafty, telling narration of her ekphrasis contrasts disharmoniously with her great sense of visual imagery. “Gesture of a Woman-in-Process” begins this trend: “In the foreground,” we are told what this picture depicts, even as the last line gives us a poignant “still in motion” showing-detail; it feels as if Tretheway didn’t know quite how to start the poem, so she wrote down some telling-facts and then evolved it into a showing-poem; while perhaps interesting on the level of authorial-poesis, I really have no desire to see the process of writing in a finalized poem… unless the poems means to do something of the sort. “Mythmaker” plays with this issue by not so much a use of “telling,” but a reliance on the second person and a forced inclusion of the reader; while the poem itself feels right, “we” and “you” kick me out of the piece faster than the stereotypes. In “History Lesson,” the reader gets “I am four in this photograph,” which is quite possibly the least interesting hook to a poem I’ve ever read… and yet it’s part of a poem that ends with dramatic impact. In all, I feel that while Domestic Work has the mind of a poet, it doesn’t quite have the style of one.
May 11, 2020
A beautiful book that celebrates the work of Black women, but also the complexities of their lives. I was struck by how Trethewey captures the noises and scents of rural southern life. As a urban dweller, there is no pond to fish in, but I like the way that she accesses those memories.
Relationships are part of the story--some with endings that reflect much of the poverty of the era. The poet captures the world behind the poverty some people might focus on. Women worked hard, but they had Sundays and control over aspects of their lives. This was her first award winning book and I am eager to read more. In this era, we need poetry.
Relationships are part of the story--some with endings that reflect much of the poverty of the era. The poet captures the world behind the poverty some people might focus on. Women worked hard, but they had Sundays and control over aspects of their lives. This was her first award winning book and I am eager to read more. In this era, we need poetry.
August 27, 2025
Throughout this collection, memory and history-haunted like much of her work, Trethewey turns her restoring gaze to the domestic work of those black men and women whose hard graft, often unsung, but here gilded and glorified, helped build America.
March 19, 2021
Incredibly moving and important collection of poems, so coherently and meaningfully compiled.
October 3, 2023
Accessible, beautifully written, and well-structured as a themed collection.
June 18, 2012
Natasha Trethewey's Domestic Work is a graphic relief map of history and memory. She writes in bumps and raises, valleys and rifts, impressions and depressions. Although this is her telling, her vision, I feel her voice is a bit removed; perhaps it's because she's addressing the past while she is very alive in the present, her present. And perhaps it is the style of the collection which makes me feel a bit detached. Where I quote below, I'm right there with her. Other places I'm not, I'm floating above the surface, looking down. I'm an outsider. I'll read Native Guard next.
From "Give and Take" -
I come here once a month to dig
my fingers into your head, grease
your scalp, put you in plaits for ease -
old woman, I remember
From "Drapery Factory, Gulfport, MS, 1956"
But then she laughs
when she recalls the soiled Kotex
she saved, stuffed into a bag
in her purse, and Adam's look
on one white man's face, his hand
deep in knowledge.
and "Hot Combs"
At the junk shop, I find an old pair,
black with grease, the teeth still pungent
as burning hair. One is small,
fine toothed as if for a child. Holding it,
I think of my mother's slender wrist,
the curve of her neck as she leaned
over the stove, her eyes shut as she pulled
the wooden handle and laid flat the wisps
at her temples. the heat in our kitchen
made her glow that morning I watched her
wincing, the hot comb singeing her brow,
sweat glistening above her lips,
her face made strangely beautiful
as only suffering can do.
From "Give and Take" -
I come here once a month to dig
my fingers into your head, grease
your scalp, put you in plaits for ease -
old woman, I remember
From "Drapery Factory, Gulfport, MS, 1956"
But then she laughs
when she recalls the soiled Kotex
she saved, stuffed into a bag
in her purse, and Adam's look
on one white man's face, his hand
deep in knowledge.
and "Hot Combs"
At the junk shop, I find an old pair,
black with grease, the teeth still pungent
as burning hair. One is small,
fine toothed as if for a child. Holding it,
I think of my mother's slender wrist,
the curve of her neck as she leaned
over the stove, her eyes shut as she pulled
the wooden handle and laid flat the wisps
at her temples. the heat in our kitchen
made her glow that morning I watched her
wincing, the hot comb singeing her brow,
sweat glistening above her lips,
her face made strangely beautiful
as only suffering can do.
January 26, 2017
This is an extraordinary book, and I'm disappointed that the reviews on the back don't begin to hint at its complexity. The book is in four sections. The book is framed by first section and the last in which photographs, ephemera, and everyday objects are the focus. And linking these two sections are not just poems, but a narrative, a beautiful story from history, through ancestry and family, and into the now of the poetic voice of this work. It tells story of a family and of a young woman, balancing between the worlds of her foremothers and her own life on the edges, trying to come to terms with the everyday tragedies and the extraordinary losses of her life.
That this is a book about the speaker's life at the edges of that history, trying to make sense of it, is hinted at throughout the work, but most clearly denoted in the title of the final poem, "Limen."
The Domestic Work of the title, then, is the women's work--washing, sewing, cleaning--Trethewey describes and the domestic work of a young woman unraveling of the stitches that have made up her family story. The work of a writer, standing outside her life, just at the edges of it and history, trying to form it into a story that makes some sense.
Extraordinary.
That this is a book about the speaker's life at the edges of that history, trying to make sense of it, is hinted at throughout the work, but most clearly denoted in the title of the final poem, "Limen."
The Domestic Work of the title, then, is the women's work--washing, sewing, cleaning--Trethewey describes and the domestic work of a young woman unraveling of the stitches that have made up her family story. The work of a writer, standing outside her life, just at the edges of it and history, trying to form it into a story that makes some sense.
Extraordinary.
March 6, 2016
"Selected by former poet laureate Rita Dove for the 1999 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, this debut is a marvelously assured collection exploring African-American heritage, civil rights, the work of women, and the sensuous work of the spirit. These exquisite poems are full of individuals who live, hurt, jazz, love, celebrate, sing, and, of course, work with dignity."--Herman Fong, The Odyssey Bookshop (South Hadley, MA
January 4, 2013
this woman uses language beautifully. i just read and reread her work. I see something new every time I do.
June 18, 2019
These are amazing. Her ability to train us in seeing, in articulating exactly what is happening and then have a turn at the end that opens the entire stunning description into another world of existential questions ... Take Carpenter Bee:
Carpenter Bee
All winter long I have passed
beneath her nest—a hole no bigger
than the tip of my thumb.
Last year, before I was here,
she burrowed into the wood
framing my porch, drilled a network
of tunnels, her round body sturdy
for the work of building. Torpid
the cold months, she now pulls herself
out into the first warm days of spring
to tread the air outside my screen door,
floating in pure sunlight, humming
against a backdrop of green. She too
must smell the wisteria, see
--with her hundreds of eyes—purple
blossoms lacing the trees.
Flowerhopping she draws invisible lines,
the geometry of her flight. Drunk
on nectar, she can still find her way
back; though now she must be
confused, disoriented, doubting even
her own homing instinct—this beeline,
now, to nowhere. Today, the workmen
have come, plugged the hole—her threshold—
covered it with thick white paint, a scent
acrid and unfamiliar. She keeps hovering,
buzzing around the spot. Watching her,
I think of what I’ve left behind, returned to,
only to find everything changed, nothing but
my memory intact—like her eggs, still inside,
each in its separate cell—snug, ordered, certain.
We are the bee and by the end we are asking Bee questions that are actually our questions ...
So many beautiful poems. Another one I loved was Limen:
All day I've listened to the industry
of a single woodpecker, worrying the catalpa tree
just outside my window. Hard at his task,
his body is a hinge, a door knocker
to the cluttered house of memory in which
I can almost see my mother's face.
She is there, again, beyond the tree,
its slender pods and heart-shaped leaves,
hanging wet sheets on the line--each one
a thin white screen between us. So insistent
is this woodpecker, I'm sure he must be
looking for something else--not simply
the beetles and grubs inside, but some other gift
the tree might hold. All day he's been at work,
tireless, making the green hearts flutter.
Carpenter Bee
All winter long I have passed
beneath her nest—a hole no bigger
than the tip of my thumb.
Last year, before I was here,
she burrowed into the wood
framing my porch, drilled a network
of tunnels, her round body sturdy
for the work of building. Torpid
the cold months, she now pulls herself
out into the first warm days of spring
to tread the air outside my screen door,
floating in pure sunlight, humming
against a backdrop of green. She too
must smell the wisteria, see
--with her hundreds of eyes—purple
blossoms lacing the trees.
Flowerhopping she draws invisible lines,
the geometry of her flight. Drunk
on nectar, she can still find her way
back; though now she must be
confused, disoriented, doubting even
her own homing instinct—this beeline,
now, to nowhere. Today, the workmen
have come, plugged the hole—her threshold—
covered it with thick white paint, a scent
acrid and unfamiliar. She keeps hovering,
buzzing around the spot. Watching her,
I think of what I’ve left behind, returned to,
only to find everything changed, nothing but
my memory intact—like her eggs, still inside,
each in its separate cell—snug, ordered, certain.
We are the bee and by the end we are asking Bee questions that are actually our questions ...
So many beautiful poems. Another one I loved was Limen:
All day I've listened to the industry
of a single woodpecker, worrying the catalpa tree
just outside my window. Hard at his task,
his body is a hinge, a door knocker
to the cluttered house of memory in which
I can almost see my mother's face.
She is there, again, beyond the tree,
its slender pods and heart-shaped leaves,
hanging wet sheets on the line--each one
a thin white screen between us. So insistent
is this woodpecker, I'm sure he must be
looking for something else--not simply
the beetles and grubs inside, but some other gift
the tree might hold. All day he's been at work,
tireless, making the green hearts flutter.
January 31, 2022
I was assigned this poetry collection for a course but I found it well worth reading. My course is focused on collections of poetry; what makes a collection, how do poems in a collection speak to one another and how do they add up (or not) to the larger poem. I always thought poets just slammed a recent set of poems into a volume and put it out into the world. This book with its focus on ordinary black people makes them into memorable and even heroic figures against the often sordid history of the U.S.
Most of the workers are women; doing laundry, feeding families, keeping homes operating with care, inspiration and ingenuity. My favorite poem is ‘Speculation’ because I feel like I am the elevator operator who is the voice of the poem. Here are lines I particularly like:
‘those closed in spaces, white men’s
sideway stares. Nothing but
time to think, make plans
each time doors slide shut.’
Most of the workers are women; doing laundry, feeding families, keeping homes operating with care, inspiration and ingenuity. My favorite poem is ‘Speculation’ because I feel like I am the elevator operator who is the voice of the poem. Here are lines I particularly like:
‘those closed in spaces, white men’s
sideway stares. Nothing but
time to think, make plans
each time doors slide shut.’
May 22, 2022
Trethewey's first poetry collection centers around work, photography, memory, and family. Even in these early poems, you can see the emergence of a powerful voice in poetry. Lines like, "The eyes of eight women / I don't know / stare out from this photograph / saying remember." ("Three Photographs --by Clifton Johnson, 1902: 3. Wash Women") and "His hands will never be large enough. / Not for the woman who sees in his face / the father she can't remember" ("His Hands") will not leave me any time soon. Her poems based on random photographs show the power that poetry can have--taking a rather innocuous object and forcing you to consider all the meaning that is wrapped up in it. Her biographical poems delve deep into the conflicts she had growing up with a black mother and white father, and she doesn't shy away from discussing the domestic abuse and loss that also defined her early years. Needless to say, this is a powerful look at race, gender, and family that will stick with you.
December 1, 2019
4.5/5
i loved this book of poems! the concept is what really drew me to it, i found it & flipped through it at the library and loved the more overt way she used poems as a tool for portraiture. more than anything i loved the way she uses poetry to look at herself and her own racial heritage in the context of these other poems. fantastic.
favs:
- Gesture of a Woman-in-Process
- Tableau
- Self-Employment, 1970
- Family Portrait
- White Lies
- Microscope
At The Station
"The man, turning, moves away
from the platform. Growing smaller,
he does not say
Come back. She won't. Each
glowing light dims
the farther it moves from reach,
the train pulling clean
out of the station. The woman sits
facing where she's been.
She's chosen her place with care—
each window another eye, another
way of seeing what's back there:
heavy blossoms in afternoon rain
spilling scent and glistening sex.
Everything drigting green.
Blue shade, leaves swollen like desir.
A man motioning nothing.
No words. His mind on fire.
Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky
"It is 1965. I am not yet born, only
a fullness beneath the empire waist
of my mother's blue dress.
The ruffles at her neck are waves
of light in my father's eyes. He carries
a slim volume, leather-bound, poems
to read as they walk. The long road
past the college, through town,
rises and falls before them,
the blue hills shimmering at twilight.
The stacks at the distillery exhale,
and my parents breathe evening air
heady and sweet as Kentucky bourbon.
They are young and full of laughter,
the sounds in my mother's throat
rippling down into my blood.
My mother, who will not reach
forty-one, steps into the middle
of a field, lies down among clover
and sweet grass, right here, right now—
dead center of her life."
i loved this book of poems! the concept is what really drew me to it, i found it & flipped through it at the library and loved the more overt way she used poems as a tool for portraiture. more than anything i loved the way she uses poetry to look at herself and her own racial heritage in the context of these other poems. fantastic.
favs:
- Gesture of a Woman-in-Process
- Tableau
- Self-Employment, 1970
- Family Portrait
- White Lies
- Microscope
At The Station
"The man, turning, moves away
from the platform. Growing smaller,
he does not say
Come back. She won't. Each
glowing light dims
the farther it moves from reach,
the train pulling clean
out of the station. The woman sits
facing where she's been.
She's chosen her place with care—
each window another eye, another
way of seeing what's back there:
heavy blossoms in afternoon rain
spilling scent and glistening sex.
Everything drigting green.
Blue shade, leaves swollen like desir.
A man motioning nothing.
No words. His mind on fire.
Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky
"It is 1965. I am not yet born, only
a fullness beneath the empire waist
of my mother's blue dress.
The ruffles at her neck are waves
of light in my father's eyes. He carries
a slim volume, leather-bound, poems
to read as they walk. The long road
past the college, through town,
rises and falls before them,
the blue hills shimmering at twilight.
The stacks at the distillery exhale,
and my parents breathe evening air
heady and sweet as Kentucky bourbon.
They are young and full of laughter,
the sounds in my mother's throat
rippling down into my blood.
My mother, who will not reach
forty-one, steps into the middle
of a field, lies down among clover
and sweet grass, right here, right now—
dead center of her life."
January 31, 2021
In an interview, Trethewey once stated “poetry requires our single attention,” answering to why poetry is such a significant endeavor today because it’s more difficult than ever to provide “single attention” to anything. I’m reminded of that whenever I read a poem. To put everything else aside and focus my singular attention on the words, each one valuable and providing substantial meaning, more so than when reading a novel for instance. This collection of poems, centered on working-class African Americans, exquisitely interweaves place, the past, and identity. Rita Dove said it best in her introduction, that Trethewey “takes up [the] double-edged sword” of people and history trapped in each other (referencing James Baldwin). I would recommend Trethewey any day but especially this collection because it shines a light on people whom American society often renders invisible...and does so with such wit and craft.
December 11, 2020
Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey takes the read deep into the soul of undervalued work that is both nurturing and suffocating. Still, she breathes life and beauty into the scenes that describe basic tasks like hanging laundry, dressing hair, rolling coins to save for insurance premiums, washing windows, beating out rugs and other under recognized tasks. In one poem she paints an affecting picture through the "Hot Combs" which depicts how black people straightened their hair with hot instruments and pomades designed to make one acceptable within the culture. Luminous, stark, and filled with understanding of domestic work, Trethewey has again opened a window into a world that brims with community and hope.
July 31, 2018
This is a book of poetry, and I don't think I've read one of those all the way through in more than a decade. This is Trethewey's first published book and I really enjoyed it. It made me think and it touched me. Not sure what else to say - poetry criticism being an even weaker point for me than prose criticism. The series that the title is drawn from is a particularly powerful group of poems following a woman (or a series of women?) through jobs from 1937 to 1970. All of the four parts of the book had great pieces, though.
July 29, 2018
Each poem in this slim book is an image, carefully painted with words chosen by this Pulitzer Prize winning poet. The images are largely of poor lower class workers laboring. Despite this, the book carries an overall happy and hopeful tone. Poetry is one of those literary genres where you'll find a lot of pretenders; Natasha Trethewey is the real deal.
November 19, 2018
Mark got this for me for Christmas last year, and I finally picked it up this fall. These poems didn't, in general, take my breath away quite like the ones in Native Guard, but they are still amazing and beautiful, and they do a nice job of using super-specific scenes to tell us something about life in general.
I'm very excited to hear she has a new volume coming out soon.
I'm very excited to hear she has a new volume coming out soon.
October 25, 2022
This was Trethewey's first book, and even then her rich poetic voice and her subject of history, both personal and national, are on full display. Often her poems highlight the everyday little moments of work, finding significance and grace in the mere labor of survival in modern life and the power of memory. Highly recommended.
January 3, 2025
I'm 25 years late, but I don't think this would have made an impact on me 25 years ago anyway. Today? Absolutely yes. Each poem is so elegant yet accessible. I love the poems that seem to be written in response to old photographs as well as the poems that seem autobiographical. Despite the contrast, there is a sense of collectivism that provides coherance.
4.5 personally, but rounding up.
4.5 personally, but rounding up.
Read
August 8, 2025“They are young and full of laughter,
the sounds in my mother’s throat
rippling down into my blood.
My mother, who will not reach
forty-one, steps into the middle
of a field, lies down among clover
and sweet grass, right here, right now—
dead center of her life.”
Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky
the sounds in my mother’s throat
rippling down into my blood.
My mother, who will not reach
forty-one, steps into the middle
of a field, lies down among clover
and sweet grass, right here, right now—
dead center of her life.”
Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky
March 28, 2020
Beautiful, striking imagery in each of the author’s poems on (domestic) life in the early- to mid-1900s with a focus on the experiences of people of color. I haven’t read anything quite like it before. I recommend.
September 29, 2020
Read in anticipation of her 2020 memoir. It is just as powerful and stings just as hard as I remember it from college. The language, her verb choices, so evocative and stunning. Black history written into personal history. I will come back to this again.
February 11, 2024
Natasha Trethewey's first published volume of poetry already shows her extraordinary command of craft--the exquisite precision of her language, the delicate imagery, the emotion coiled within each memory-haunted line. Beautiful, astonishing, profound.
September 17, 2017
Review pending.
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