Monument

Natasha Trethewey is a former US poet laureate and the author of five collections of poetry, as well as a book of creative nonfiction. She is currently the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. In 2007 she won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Native Guard.

"The Mississippi-born poet Natasha Trethewey has an exalted résumé...but her poems are earthy; they fly close to the ground...Trethewey pivots knowingly, in her poetry, between hard times and good ones. The delicate branches of her verse run you along a harrowing borderline of substance and illusion...[Trethewey has an] insistent intellect and [a] gift for turning over rich soil...The human details in Trethewey’s work — those crabs, that music, those cracked palms — are like the small feathers that give contour to a bird’s wing. Monument is a major book, and in her best poems this poet soars." — Dwight Garner, New York Times"This collection of old and new poems by the former poet laureate of the United States includes Trethewey’s powerful reflections on the way our nation contends with its diversity and memorializes its past. Think you’re not a poetry person? Think again. Trethewey’s verse is as accessible as it is brilliant." — Ron Charles, Washington Post"Natasha Trethewey was a two-term laureate, and her poetry seems to fit that description, precise in word choice but wide in subject and historical memory. Her new collection is called Monument, and that's what it feels like in some ways— patriotic, brave, honest—with a power that feels like some stanzas could slash you to ribbons." — NPR"Trethewey bears witness to the daily urgencies of black existence, capturing in her lines the poignant music of hope and persistence. The pleasure of rediscovering a career’s worth of Trethewey’s exquisite and best-known work alongside her newest and most heart-wrenchingly personal is immense. It also reveals how keenly all of us are shaped by loss, and how much America, too, has been forged by the ever-present shard of grief." — Tracy K. Smith, O magazine"Standing as a pivotal monument to the career of one of America’s greatest living poets, these new and collected poems are a must-have for fans of poetry. Here, the reader is privy to some of the most compelling poems that Trethewey has produced during her career as well as new poems that have been inspired by looking at her work in this context. An incredibly moving collection that illuminates a life's work in poetry." — The Root"Natasha Trethewey’s Monument is a glorious example of what results when one listens — and writes — brilliantly. Trethewey blends a distinctive voice with striking images and perspectives...These pages clearly demonstrate why Trethewey, whose honors include the Pulitzer Prize and two terms as poet laureate of the United States, is one of our preeminent poets. They also remind us that her work is loved because she refuses to forget those who’ve been lost and the struggles of those who remain."  — Elizabeth Lund, Washington Post"Her exquisite and brutal lyricism as well as her commitment to truth makes Trethewey one of the most important American poets of our time...Her new book, Monument, is...a vibrant and timely book, deeply aware of our nation's chaotic moment and its historical resonances...Trethewey is a tremendously empathic and enthusiastic force in our nation's bleak period. Her words settle with profound gravity." — The Paris Review"Deftly woven...both expansive and intimate...the twenty years’ worth of poetry presented in Monument feels incredibly timely. Trethewey flings open the door...invites us to commune with her through some of the hardest truths of both her life and this country’s history." — Guernica"The arrival of Monument is perfectly timed, or specific to this moment...what stands out beyond that is how many ways Trethewey finds to revisit and restructure history: her own, but also the histories of black people in America...Throughout this vast catalog of work, teeming with references to specific dates or old photos, Trethewey doesn’t shame readers for what they don’t know. Instead, she invites them to learn alongside her...this is a black woman who has committed an entire life and career to holding a country accountable, despite the weight of her own grief." — Hanif Abdurraqib, Buzzfeed"There always seems to me something seething between the lines of every Natasha Trethewey poem, which is part of what makes her work so admirable and so completely impossible to imitate." — Jericho Brown"Trethewey's book—her first retrospective collection—is a literary edifice that painstakingly, heartbreakingly, and victoriously memorializes those deemed unworthy of citation in academic syllabi or among the nation's public statuary... After reading this volume, it's clear why her work is monumental—this book is a must-read for people interested in where America has been, where it's headed, and how to traverse the crossroads of the country's literature while also perhaps saving their soul at the beginning of this turbulent century." — Tyehimba Jess, Poetry Foundation