Week 4 pick a poet Natasha Trethewey - "Duty"

 "Duty" 

        In this poem, the author, Natasha Trethewey, recalls a "distant memory" of her experience with her father in Hurricane Camille. The poem begins with insight on how things are in her life before she gets into the actual story. She mentions her late relatives who were present but neglected in telling of the story, tells of the way her father paints himself a hero, and reminds the reader of the value of perspective (her father's truth isn't always the actual truth, but since she was too young to recall what actually happened, the way her father tells it is all she has). 

        The middle of the poem contains the story, or at least her father's version of it, anyway. The story takes place in a flooding house, where her father feels that his "duty" is to "keep [Natasha] out of harm's way". A small girl clinging on to his father, relying on him for her safety. We wonder why the author is telling this story. What is the story's significance? 

        The end of the poem clears up any confusion. We finally understand her father's intentions of telling the story the way that he does: Her father wanted to show that although the rest of the family may no longer be present, he is still able to be there for his daughter when she is in need. In fact, he always has been there for her, even before they passed, and even in the scariest of natural disasters. 

        I absolutely love the mystery that is involved in this poem. At first, I wondered why the father might have left Natasha's mother, grandmother, and uncle out of the story... Wouldn't he be compelled to include them in the story because of how much he misses them? Wouldn't he cling on to every memory he has of them? But as we read on we realize that the father's intentions are to pretend that it had always been only them two. Maybe his way of coping with their deaths is to convince himself that things had always been just he and his daughter. He can't miss them if they were never there, can he?