THE HOUSE OF BEING

The former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner reflects on how geography and history shaped her creative career.

Trethewey’s earliest memories take place inside her grandmother’s “shotgun house” outside of Gulfport, Mississippi. Later, the author would learn that her birthplace was located on Highway 49, “a legendary highway of the Blues,” and that her birthday was on “the hundredth anniversary of Confederate Memorial Day.” These literal and metaphorical intersections deeply influenced Trethewey’s life by inspiring her to study her grandmother’s Black vernacular (“the language that connected us across time and space”), her awareness of the ways in which America systematically erases Black history and culture, and her obsession with permanently inscribing her mother’s existence—and her untimely death—into the historical record. “To have dominion over oneself, to be the sovereign of the nation of self, one must be the writer of the story,” she writes. By the end of this brief text, part of the publisher’s Why I Write series, Trethewey concludes that for her, “the language of poetry creates a space for what I’ve lost to carry on, a momentary stay against the inevitable.” It is this recovery of losses—e.g., family memories of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross across the street from her grandmother’s house, the contributions of Black soldiers to the Union’s victory in the Civil War, the upkeep of her mother’s gravesite—that has driven the author’s storied career for decades. In this lyrical, thoughtful volume, Trethewey not only makes surprising, insightful connections between personal and national history; she also paints a profound portrait of unresolvable grief. Though it adheres to the series format, the text feels like a long-form essay. While a satisfying read, many of the narrative’s nuanced but neat conclusions could merit more exploration.

A thoughtful meditation on a celebrated poet’s reasons for writing.