This week the poem I chose is “Hurricane” by, as usual, Natasha Trethewey. At first, I just picked it because the title felt relevant, there was just that tropical storm or something along those lines (I never figured out exactly what it was). The title is technically the only time it’s outright said that the poem is about a hurricane. She mentions it by name, Camille, and brings up hurricane parties, but she never explicitly says it was a hurricane. I just think it’s a notable choice.
Every week we do these poetry blogs, I find that I just really love Trethewey’s writing. In this poem, it starts off talking about the hurricane through footage, and it doesn’t sound so bad. The poem mentions blowing palm trees, the wind blowing in women’s hair, and hurricane parties, which I had to look up, all relatively nice-sounding things, or at least not bad things. Hurricane parties are literally just party pre-hurricane, I thought I would throw this in for context even though it’s really self-explanatory. Then, as I often find with Trethewey’s poetry, the tone changes drastically.
She begins to talk about the aftermath of the hurricane. The shift happens in an interesting way, she ends a thought that doesn’t sound so bad and picks it up again sounding much more dire. She starts, “boats washed ashore, a swamp” and continues on the next line “where graves had been.” The rest of the poem is much more somber, but still quite beautiful.
The composition of the poem is really strange to me. The way she set up the lines and therefore how the poem flows feels choppy. Thoughts get cut off and continue at seemingly random points sometimes and obviously intentionally chosen points at other times. I like it though, it makes you think. Why would she choose this specific spot to cut off or continue?
I really like the end of the poem, it’s supposed to be sad clearly, but I think it’s so powerful. She talks about the foundation of their house being removed by the hurricane, but she says it in a way that makes it sound like more than just a house. It’s the foundation of her family and her life, or at least it seems that way to me. But the last line is probably my favorite of all,
“In the water, our reflection
trembled,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.”
Sorry if this makes the blog post look weird I didn’t want to mess with the composition. Anyway, I think it’s so meaningful, the way that she lost her foundation, and then lost herself and her family’s reflections.
Another thing I really like about Trethewey’s writing is that she always writes from her experience or her family’s. The way she describes the events she writes about always gives nostalgic feelings like she’s looking through a photo album while she writes. I love nostalgia, and I think that’s one reason I’m really drawn to her poetry and style of writing.
My poet Kevin Coval seems to write quite similarly to Trethewey. The abrupt yet meaningful shift in tone, relating their poems to their experiences, and especially the nostalgia element. Coval always connects his poem to Chicago, where he grew up, which makes his work actually interesting because it introduces that "nostalgia."
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that she chooses to refer to the hurricane by the name, Camille. Maybe this means that there is no real hurricane, but it's just used as a way to describe a person?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.weather.gov/mob/camille
DeleteCamille is the second worst hurricane to ever hit the continental United States!! It was in 1969. I would assume that the poem is literal and metaphorical both :-)
It is very interesting how the poem revolves around the hurricane. I think that metaphorically it is talking about the strength of the hurricane but also physically it is talking about the impact of the hurricane as well.
ReplyDelete