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purplehulk713's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.5
Good. Not my favorite. Very short. It was hard for me to get into as I kept falling half-asleep while trying to read it for class. But there are some gorgeous images and insights waiting in here. For example…
Why not call it
a vision? What I know is this:
I was drowning and saw a dark
Madonna;
someone pulled me through
the water's bright ceiling
and I rose, initiate,
from one life into another.
hannalizzy's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.25
I studied this book in Advanced Poetry II this semester and was thoroughly impressed by her work. A fantastic example of sequence poetry that cuts to the bone and a wonderful new perspective on being biracial in America. At times, Tretheway is completely shocking, tugging your jaw to the floor, and at other points she gives small moments of beautiful relief. Some of the images in this book are downright disturbing, but it’s a risk she takes very deliberately. You can’t help but admire her tenacity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Racism, and Medical content
amandaatkinson06's review
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
Trethewey is, as always, breathtaking. Especially loved “Miracle of the Black Leg” and “Enlightenment”. Hoping to read Memorial Drive soon!
sherbertwells's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.0
Poems inspired by the obscure depiction of mixed-raced people in art history and the even-more-ambiguous figure of Trethewey’s whte father. Not as animated as Native Guard, but cool and clever like a shellac eye.
“If I tell you such [taxonomic] 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” (“Torna Atrás,” 49)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Medical content, Racism, Racial slurs, and Medical trauma
Minor: Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Slavery
jennicakes's review
5.0
I'm glad Natasha Trethewey is poet laureate, even though I will always think of her as Rick's daughter.
(I guess I just summarized the book.)
(I guess I just summarized the book.)
ceah_reads's review
Natasha Trethewey's Thrall is an elegant interrogation and an intimate exploration, delving into the history and construction of race an identity in Europe and the Americas, exploring family alongside national myths. An exquisite book.