Written by Tasha Thompson

May 2011

Snapshots of Humanity

Forgotten History in Natasha Trethewey‟s Domestic Work

In Natasha Trethewey‟s first award-winning book, Domestic Work, she focuses on

a theme that is present throughout her work but most strongly in this book. She writes

about photographs of life, moments of indecision, focusing on the story within each of

us. Through these stories to which all can relate to some extent, she encourages an

underlying theme of social justice based on the idea of shared humanity. Quite the

formalist, Trethewey sticks to very simple forms in this book, occasionally using

couplets or basic rhyme schemes. She does this to illustrate the fact that she is

discussing the basic nature of the subject of her poems, the underlying concept that all

of these people have something in common – they are all very human. But what does it

mean to be human? According to her poetry, it means reflection, embarrassment,

happiness in the little things, struggles, loving the wrong people too much and the right

people not enough, and finally, relying on sometimes illogical moments or dreams to

get you through the day. She has created a scrapbook of instances from multiple lives,

painting a vivid picture of humanity through her imagery, voice and sense of sound.

In an interview with Charles Henry Rowell, Trethewey said about her poetry:

I think I've been concerned with what I have noticed to be the erasures of

history for a very long time. Those stories often left to silence or oblivion,

the gaps within the stories that we are told, both in the larger public

historical records and in our family histories as well, the stories within

families that people don't talk about, the things that are kept hushed. And

so I've always been interested in those contentions between public and

cultural memory, larger history and private or family memory and stories.

And so I do seek to restore or to recover those subjugated narratives.

(“Inscriptive Restorations” 1022)

In light of this notion, I will explore the techniques Trethewey uses to bring these

subjugated narratives back to life for the reader and emphasize their importance. I will

also investigate the concept of social justice in her poetry.

Trethewey is fascinated with moments in time. Nine of the poems in this book

are dated specifically in the title or epigraph, more in the body of the poem, and a few

are even based off of specific photographs. This includes the first poem in the book,

“Gesture of a Woman in Process.” Although not dated in the title, the poem is given an

epigraph that simply states that it was based on a photograph from 1902. The language

in this poem is fairly simple with extremely short lines, reflecting the common,

everyday nature of the subject of the photograph, the “dailiness” as she puts it.

Throughout, Trethewey plays with sound and interesting word choice, dailiness

being a key example. Surrounding dailiness are the words “linens” and “clotheslines,”

leaving the assonance in the ears and lines in the eye. There‟s even slight alliteration in a

few places, such as “pauses for the picture” (3).

All of this seems to be unconscious throughout the poem, however. The focus is

on this simple yet beautiful moment in the life of these two women, one too caught up

in the busyness of her day to stop for the photograph. The last few lines describe her in

a way that reflects on nearly all of the poems throughout the book: “Even now, her

hands circling,/the white blur of her apron/still in motion.” Essentially all of these

poems describe lives “still in motion.” Everything is a snapshot without a definite end,

just a brief moment in the time of these narrators‟ lives.

She does not limit these snapshots to experiences that relate directly to her life,

either. Instead, she is interested and writes about moments out of many walks of life. In

only the first introductory section of three poems, she describes two women as

discussed above, a group of male workers gathered at a club, two black men collecting

flowers, a single man, and a group of eight women. These are all explicitly based on

photographs of these various people‟s lives.

In fact, the scope of this book begins wide, encompassing all walks of human life,

and narrows throughout to relate to Trethewey‟s own experiences. As she says in the

interview, “the collection moves from historical figures in photographs - people I don't

know - to the life of my maternal grandmother within a particular historical moment, to

an exploration of the immediate family history” (“Inscriptive Restorations” 1027). As

such, most of the earlier poems are dated and contain a setting in the title, whereas the

later poems in the book are much more personal.

She includes high detail in many of her poems, and it has a profound effect on

her poetry. In “At the Owl Club, North Gulfport, Mississippi, 1950,” her focus on the

individual items or pieces of the picture is very striking. For example, “This is where his

work is:/The New Orleans tailored suits,/shining keys, polished wood/and mirrors of

the bar./A white Cadillac out front./Money in his pocket, a good cigar” (4). This focus

on the little things, the pieces that make up this man‟s life really puts personality and a

strong voice into this poem. Bits of his life, and later in the poem, of all the men‟s lives,

are given to us for inspection and so that we can form a mental image and relate.

Like when describing the man, her ability to shift voices between narrators is

fascinating. In the second part of “Three Photographs” labeled “Cabbage Vendor,” she

adopts an accent throughout the poem which allows the reader to truly hear the

narrator, the man in the photograph, and experience the poem on an entirely more

personal level than would be possible otherwise. There are not a lot of apostrophes or

slang words, as one might expect – she simply changes the order and form of the

words, especially verbs. For example, it begins, “Natural, he say./What he want from

me?/Say he gone look through that hole --/his spirit box--/and watch me sell my

cabbages/to make a picture hold/this moment, forever./Nothing natural last/forever”

(7). This enables the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the man himself.

One technique that Trethewey uses throughout her poems to assist the reader in

understanding the characters and scenarios in her work is that of dialogue, usually

occurring between the character and him or herself. This appears in “Domestic Work,

1937,” “Speculation, 1939,” “Signs, Oakvale Mississippi, 1941,” and “Expectant,” just to

name a few. In fact, it appears in varying degrees in nearly all of her poems.

“Domestic Work, 1937” is obviously the title poem of the book, and is very

refreshing. It‟s a picture of the routine of this woman who is employed as a

housecleaner and still finds beauty in performing these chores. The reader is privy to

her thoughts, listening as she revels in her alone time, the part of the week she looks

forward to the most. Cleaning is symbolic of new beginnings, clear-headedness and

opportunity. This is quite prevalent throughout. As the narrator says, “Cleanliness is next

to godliness,” (13). Slowly but surely she is cleaning her past up and becoming

something new.

Trethewey says of the theme of domestic work:

…that is what I intended with the title Domestic Work, not domestic work

as the work of cleaning someone's house, although that is certainly part of

the book as well, but the everyday work that we do as human beings to

live with or without people that we've lost, the work of memory and

forgetting, and of self-discovery – not simply the work of earning a living

and managing our households, but that larger, daily, domestic work that

all of us do. (“Inscriptive Restorations” 1026)

This is certainly present throughout and serves as one of the main facets of humanity

that she emphasizes, one of the ways in which we are all very similar. This is one of the

common threads of humanness we all share.

One of the ways she illustrates these is through a variation of techniques. We are

all different, but all similar, and so are her poems. Each poem stands on its own, each

employing different forms and different techniques. Yet, there are some strong

similarities in this book; she tends to use short to medium line length, dialogue and

always some sort of simple form. The differences make it exciting, like the differences in

people make us interesting. She plays with a variety of different techniques and themes

throughout each of her pieces.

In “At the Station,” she uses color and the theme of movement, one that is

strongly prevalent throughout the book. She begins the poem with an epigraph of two

lines from a blues song by Robert Johnson entitled “Love in Vain.” The two lines are,

“The blue light was my blues,/and the red light was my mind” (qtd. in Trethewey

“Domestic Work” 19). The first half deals with movement. Every line contains it

somehow; nothing is still. The two presumed former lovers are separating, the man

turning, moving away, and growing smaller. The light is dimming, moving out of

reach. The train is pulling away from the station. The woman is sitting, but she‟s sitting

on a moving train, watching the world pass by. The line describing this is brilliant: “The

woman sits/facing where she‟s been” (19). She is facing her past while running from it,

dealing with it one last time.

Then, suddenly, there is intense imagery, the way that it only really appears in

our own memories. Images mixed with feelings, small details remembered sharply.

However, even in this section of the poem the theme of movement is continued, if in

unusual ways. The scent spills, there is dripping green. Leaves are swollen. Then, a man

is motioning “nothing,” effectively bringing the theme of movement and the poem to a

close. These last few lines tie directly back into the epigraph as well: “Blue shade”

recalls the first line, about blue light and blues, and then the last line of the poem is,

“His mind on fire,” which reflects the second line of the epigraph with the fire

symbolizing the red light.

Her formalism is also reflected in this poem, with her use of tercets and an aba

rhyme scheme. This form helps give the piece a flowing rhythm. Through this form,

combined with the strong imagery and theme of movement, Trethewey connects this

moment in these two people‟s lives to something to which the reader can understand

and relate. She illustrates a moment of common humanity, the point of leaving a piece

of the past behind, yet remembering and facing it all as one does so.

The first half of the book is dedicated mainly to people whom Trethewey has no

apparent relationship with – they simply represent different points on the spectrum of

humanity. Of these types of poems especially, Trethewey states in an interview:

I want to create a public record of people who are often excluded from the

public record. I want to inscribe their stories into the larger American

story. I want readers who might be unfamiliar with these people, their

lives, and their particular circumstances to begin to know something

about them, to see in the people that I write about some measure of them,

and to, I think, enlarge the community of humanity. (Trethewey

“Inscriptive Restorations” 1025)

All of us have these stories, these hidden pieces of history. This is part of what makes

her poetry so accessible. She focuses on humanity. Through doing so, race, relationship,

and even gender issues are sometimes reflected as part of the struggles that people face.

Rarely controversial or overwhelmingly opinionated, she manages to address difficult

issues in a very common-sense manner.

Throughout her work, Trethewey is influenced by her strong opinions regarding

social justice. In a lecture given at Emory University, Trethewey states: “It would have

been impossible then, as it is now, to say, „I am going to sit down and write a poem

about social justice,‟ though I see now how the hope for and commitment to it pervades

every word I write. It is the lens through which I see the world” (Trethewey “Why I

Write”). The way in which she depicts these characters is one of the ways she

encourages social justice.

The key to true social justice is the ability to relate to one another and recognize

the sameness of people in general. Once the populous is able to recognize the fact that

those around them, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other

factor, are in fact at the core no different from anyone else, there will no longer be

discrimination or other violations of social justice. One of the most effective ways to

reach this is by building bridges between individuals and between cultures, and

Trethewey does this in her poems, telling stories from lives that could be very different

from that of the reader yet would resonate with anyone. The response she hopes to gain

from her reader is indeed successful. One can hardly walk away from these poems

without feeling as if one has gained a deeper understanding of human nature as a

whole and all of the similarities which make us all members of this thing we call

humanity.

Moving into the second half of the book, Trethewey takes a slightly different

tone. These poems are much more personal, discussing family and Trethewey‟s past. As

she explores in particular the relationship with her mother, she becomes slightly

vulnerable and opens up to the reader. Through this, she gives a very personal look at

her experiences with social justice and the human condition.

In the third section of her book, Trethewey begins to investigate the relationships

in her family. The first of these poems is entitled “Early Evening, Frankfort, Kentucky.”

Set in 1965, the poem occurs before Trethewey is born, while her mother is still

pregnant with her. This piece is a celebration of the young, apparently effortless love of

her parents. It‟s a very romantic picture: a young couple going for a walk, the woman

obviously pregnant and glowing, the man carrying a slim, leather-bound volume of

poetry to read to her.

The imagery that Trethewey uses is again highlighted in this poem. The color

blue, associated with calm happiness, is used both to describe her mother‟s dress and

the color of the hills, aiding in the mood of the poem and the state of the oneness with

the world that her mother inhabits at this time. This is also described in the ending of

the poem, as her mother lies down among clover and grass, in the “dead center of her

life” (27). She is at the peak of everything in this moment, a perfect day. In addition, a

beautiful description that Trethewey incorporates is that of her mother‟s laughter

“rippling down into [her] blood” (27). This illustrates the oneness that Trethewey

shares with her mother, a relationship quite complicated but at the heart extremely

deep and meaningful.

Notice that in this poem, Trethewey is still incorporating the same technique as

earlier, taking snapshots of a life forgotten and writing it down in an art form. She is

recording that history that so often gets lost – a perfect day where nothing incredibly

important happens, but is still somehow more important than most days in a person‟s

life. However, these ideal moments tend to reside in our own private memories and are

not shared, because there is apparently nothing momentous to say about them, other

than the fact that those days are the ones for which and during which we truly live.

The poem “Flounder” is one in which she discusses social justice issues more

directly. She uses dialogue well in the poem, showing how her young mind processes

what Aunt Sugar is teaching her. The rhyme scheme is a somewhat interesting abcb in

this poem, giving it a certain flow and rhythm. Initially this poem seems like most of the

others, simply a snapshot from a life, but the fish makes it more interesting. Her aunt

tells her that she has caught a flounder, and you can tell “…’cause one of its sides is black.

The other side is white” (37). Then the young narrator watched it flip back and forth:

black, white, black, white. This would certainly speak to Trethewey, since she is mixed

race as well. She must have related to the fish. Flounders typically hide their white side,

and at this point in her life, she must have been trying to decide which part to hide, or

which part to celebrate, depending on how one looks at it.

This poem, “White Lies,” and “History Lesson” deal more blatantly with color

than most of the others throughout the book, the latter two to much more of an extent.

The key passage from “White Lies” is a three-line recollection of a moment in class:

“…like the time a white girl said/(squeezing my hand), Now/we have three of us in this

class,” (37). This illustrates Trethewey‟s personal struggles with her place in society,

something that heavily influenced her social justice lens. She obviously did not fit

perfectly into either side and as such could not have seen the necessity of breaking

society down into these strict definitions of black or white. She was both.

“History Lesson” begins the last section of the book. In it, she is describing a

photograph, something she does often. This photograph is taken by her grandmother of

her at four years old standing on a beach that had, up until two years previous to the

photograph, been off-limits for blacks. The poem reminisces, telling us that when her

grandmother was growing up, there was a similar photo of her on the same beach but

on a narrow strip of it labeled “colored” (45) – the only place her grandmother was

allowed to go.

Again in this piece, Trethewey‟s ability with imagery and word choice is

stunning. She brings us to the beach from the very beginning, describing her toes

curling into the wet sand and the sun cutting the rippling Gulf (45). Later, the minnows

glint like switchblades, playing off the cutting sun. One can easily feel the wet sand, the

hot sun, and see the little minnows. She instantly brings the reader in, makes the poem

extremely accessible.

The poem that most closely relates to the title poem also appears in the last

section. It‟s called “Housekeeping.” The way these poems are in conversation with each

other is very interesting. “Domestic Work, 1937” discusses housework as both a burden

and a privilege, a way to make a living as well as a way to clean one‟s soul.

“Housekeeping,” however, treats housework as something never-ending which must

be done. It‟s more of a routine, a quiet bonding time for mother and daughter. All but

one sentence is spoken from the perspective of “we,” illustrating the team that they

become in accomplishing these apparently mundane activities.

The book ends with a poem entitled “Limen.” This poem describes listening to

the work of a woodpecker, a quiet, reflective moment. Her mother is briefly referenced

as a memory, a background to her everyday life. This poem truly brings the book to a

close on a very personal, focused, and calm note. It‟s also hopeful. The woodpecker is

described as looking for “some other gift the tree might hold,” (58). If he works hard

enough, perhaps he‟ll find it.

If we work hard enough, perhaps we can find the gift inside each of us in the

form of shared memories and experiences, a common thread of humanity throughout

all of us. Reflected in our domestic work of chores to daily tasks of forgetting pain and

living our lives, our oneness with each other should be easily discovered.

In Domestic Work, Trethewey explores concepts of social justice through the use

of form, imagery, and voice. She takes snapshots with words of significant moments in

lives of seemingly insignificant people and in the lives of her and her family, and shares

them in an effort to explain the equality of everyone. Her extremely accessible poems

speak to readers of all backgrounds, and her poignant word choice leaves her messages

ringing in our minds.

Works Cited

Trethewey, Natasha D. Domestic Work: Poems. Ed. Rita Dove Saint Paul, Minn: Graywolf

Press, 2000. Print.

Trethewey, Natasha. “Why I Write: Natasha Trethewey on Poetry, History and Social

Justice.” Distinguished Faculty Lecture. Emory University. Atlanta, GA. 3 Feb.

2010. Lecture. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zfzs6zqDsw&feature=relmfu>

Rowell, Charles H, and Natasha Trethewey. "Inscriptive Restorations: an Interview with

Natasha Trethewey." Callaloo. 27.4 (2004): 1022-1034. Print.