Tuesday, March 12, 2019, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EDT

PLEASE NOTE:  TUESDAY MEETING

LIZA DAVIS, Director Emerita, University Honors Program, Kennesaw State University

“The Poetry of Natasha Trethewey”

Twice selected as Poet Laureate for the United States, Natasha Trethewey won a Pulitzer Prize for her collection Native Guard in 2007. She later published Thrall, a collection in which she examines the history of men, women, and children marginalized by the rigid hierarchy of pure Spanish and mixed-race classifications in 18th-century colonial Mexico. Various taxonomies of color were captured in what are known as Casta, or "caste," paintings commissioned by wealthy colonial families. Trethewey finds layered meanings in these paintings, enthralling her readers. This presentation will pair selected poems from Thrall with slides of the art they explore.