Native Guard
by Natasha Trethewey
The Let鈥檚 Talk About It, 红杏直播app book discussion series at 红杏直播app City University continues鈥痺ith Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey at 7 p.m. Sept. 27 in 红杏直播app鈥檚 Walker Center Room 151.
The discussion series is titled 鈥淐ivil Rights and Equality: A Pulitzer Prize Centennial 红杏直播app鈥� and is made possible through a grant from the 红杏直播app Humanities Council and the Pulitzer Foundation鈥檚 Centennial Campfire Initiative.
Tretheway鈥檚 poems offer powerful meditations on the personal and the historical, on the rights we deserve as citizens as well as the rights we deserve at home.
Poems are seldom included in the Let鈥檚 Talk About It series; however, poems often provide powerful meditations on a theme, and meditating together on such themes holds the possibility of enriching the community engaged in mutual exploration.
Natasha Tretheway, one of the finest living poets in the U.S., offers an accessible collection of related poems that explore her own childhood history in the South alongside an exploration of the history of the Louisiana 鈥淣ative Guard,鈥� an African American branch of the National Guard that served the state during the Civil War. These explorations are framed by the opening poem, which establishes the poet鈥檚 road trip back to the Gulf Coast as she embarks on a trip that evokes her own family鈥檚 past in the region as well as engages her in historical research and contemplations on place, images, and identity. Readers follow the poet鈥檚 journey through memory and our larger shared histories as she processes it all through lyrical language and rich images.
At each session in the five-part series, a humanities scholar makes a presentation on the book in the context of the theme.鈥疐or this book, our speaker will be Dr. Harbour Winn. Small group discussions follow with experienced discussion leaders. At the end, all participants come together for a brief wrap-up.
While all books to loan in this series have been checked out, members of the 红杏直播app City-area community are welcome to bring their own copies of the book and join the conversation. For more information call 405-208-5707, or e-mail [email protected]
UPCOMING DISCUSSIONS
* Oct. 11, The Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
* Oct. 25, A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
* Nov. 1, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
