Week 7 Pick a Poet Natasha Trethewey - Flounder

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52891/flounder

Flounder by Natasha Trethewey

  I really enjoyed this one; it gave me chills. In this poem, Trethewey uses a metaphor to describe an aspect of her identity, which is her mixed--Black and White--heritage. She begins by describing a day that she was fishing with her Aunt Sugar. It doesn't specify the race of her aunt, but I assume she is Black by the way she is judging Natasha's pale color--given to her by her dad--and offering her a hat to avoid getting burnt from the sun. They are fishing. 

        The second stanza describes how Aunt Sugar folds her nylons down to her ankles, and Natasha follows suit, wanting to be just like her aunt. We can use this as an analogy to show how Natasha longs to be just like her aunt, probably in more ways than one. 

        Toward the end of the poem, Aunt Sugar catches a fish. As she pulls the fish out, Aunt Sugar notices it is a Flounder. She can tell by the contrast in color on each side of the fish; one side is black, the other is white. It is clear that the Flounder resembles Natasha--Having one side of the family that is Black, and the other White, each with different cultures and traditions and views on society. 

        The last stanza of the poem describes the way that the Flounder flip-flopped on the ground, alternating color as it switches sides. This imagery emulates how Natasha feels in her own life--having multiple identities. She probably struggles with knowing which identity to showcase to the world. When a fish is flip-flopping out of the water like that, it struggles to breathe. It gave me chills to realize that Natasha relates to the way the fish was struggling. I can imagine that with so much division in the world, it is difficult to identify as both Black and White. People make all types of assumptions, and you may feel like you don't quite fit in each group. This poem made me think of how powerful imagery and metaphors can be to describe such an intense idea. If Trethewey would have described the way she felt, it wouldn't have had such an impact. But relating herself to a Flounder made the meaning much more impactful.