The Native Guard Flashcards
Theories of Time and Space
Part I
Theme: relationship between the person and the place
irregular - caesura, enjamblement
Feels like a riddle
Even if you return to a place, it’s not the same. You have probably changed. Doesn’t feel like home.
The Southern Crescent
Part I
irregular - caesura, enjamblement - you’re pulled, you’re forced to carry out, like the impulse to leave home
theme: The Southern Crescent
high expectations, personal investments, disappointment
Train rides with and without her mother to meet fathers
the first part deals with…
The first part deals with someone’s personal connection to a place, and all the memories that go with it.
the second part deals with…
the history of a place, and how the events in a location are remembered. The events in Mississippi have been remembered from the white perspective, and the contribution of ex-slaves has been deleted from history.
the third part…
combines the two, and looks at how racist attitudes in society damage families and make growing up extremely tough for young black children.
Genus Narcissus
quote
Part I
Beaty, illusion, self-reflection, identity
irregular - caesura, enjamblement
Her as a little girl bringing the yellow flowers - she now
realises she did it for validation
“from the sill. Be taken with yourself,/ they said to me; Die early, to my mother.”
Graveyard Blues
Part I
themes:
mortality, grief, and the transient nature of human existence.
Her going through the graveyard after burying her mother, exploring the memories, histories, and the interconnectedness of life and death
regular structure - rhyme ( 3 strofe, all the same rhyme - 2 exacly the same, last one is slant), structure like song, Emotion in the purest way
last verse only has 2 lines, not tree →song stops, pattern broken - grief
What the Body Can Say
quote
PART I
Themes:
grief, solace, failure, interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit
“her face tilted up/at me, her mouth falling open, wordless, just as/we open our mouths in church to take in the wafer/meaning communion? What matters is context”
The funeral was not an event of closure
The ways in which physical gestures, movements, and expressions can reveal the innermost thoughts and emotions of individuals who have endured trauma or hardship.
Her semiotic ability has failed her, context matters
Structure: 2 line stanzas with enjambment to carry the idea onto the next one - yes there are moments for reflections but they don’t provide closure, caesura
Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971
PART I
Themes:
memory, impermanence, transformation, trauma
Structure:
the question mark - no closure here, unresolved
3 lines per verse but it has caesura and enjamblement
“nothing
of what’s inside—mother, stepfather’s fist?”
What is Evidence
PART I
Theme:
history, the ways in which evidence can be interpreted and manipulated, justice, the power dynamics inherent in the construction of history (marginalised voices), the reliability of evidence
Structure of a sonnet (14 lines, love) but with irregular features - caesura, enjamblemet
Looking at her mother’s dead body and wondering what was going on - asking questions
The poem raises questions about the reliability of evidence, especially in contexts where certain voices and perspectives have been marginalized or silenced.
Letter
+ quote
part I
quote:
‘because of the way you left me: how suddenly
a simple errand, a letter—everything—can go wrong.’
Themes:
resilience and the human capacity to seek solace and understanding through written expression, the complexities of longing, nostalgia, and the desire to bridge distances
How writing a letter to a friend is reminding her of the traumatic event
The poem takes the form of a letter addressed to someone absent or inaccessible.
enjamblemet
After Your Death
imagery
part I
Theme:
moving on and letting go
The figs are not healthy - Natasha isn’t ready to move on but she thinks she is (represent immortality, the fruit of heaven, Christian, metaphor for your readiness to receive God)
imagery: “bruised” “split” “plucked” aggressive imagery violent adjectives to show that moving on is too painful; “tomorrow” she postpones
Emptying her mom’s closet - the act of moving on +
aggressive imagery violent adjectives to show that moving on is too painful
Enjambment - gives it momentum, continues her mother s story
myth
part I
Themes:
Guilt, inability to move on, repeatedness
structure:
enjbamlement, Mirroring the underworld - palindromic (reads the same backward or forward)
Everyday she sleeps dreams of her mom, she tries to bring her back
At Dusk
part I
the call of home and how it is so often ignored, the inevitability of endings, loss and longing
The cat in the poem could be said to symbolise those who, for one reason or another, choose not to spend time at home and who are easily distracted by the “luminous possibilities” of life away from home and hearth.
The image of dusk, with its fading light, serves as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of existence and the inevitability of endings
one big stanza
Pilgrimage
part II
themes
Historical memory and remembrance
The passage of time and its impact on collective identity
The juxtaposition of the past and present
The enduring legacy of war and conflict
The interplay between personal experience and broader historical narratives
context of visiting Mississippi, deeply intertwined with the history of the Civil War.
caezura, enjamblement
Scenes From a Documentary History of Mississippi: King Cotton, 1907
part II
4 poems on the theme of memory and the way that history is told and the way its recorded tries to get you to believe a version of the past that obscures. Official history trying to obscure the truth.
Natasha is looking for a history book, evidence. She sees these photos but she knows that behind these pictures there are sinister stories of discrimination.
The mirroring shows the never ending cycle of discrimination
The repetition in every stanza of the sunrise and the sunset - stuck in a loop, each day you have to work hard as a slave
IMAGERY OF COTTON creating a wall - They are walled and stuck into slavery
enjamblement, caesura
Scenes From a Documentary History of Mississippi: Glyph, Aberdeen, 1913
part II
4 poems on the theme of memory and the way that history is told and the way its recorded tries to get you to believe a version of the past that obscures. Official history trying to obscure the truth.
Natasha is looking for a history book, evidence. She sees these photos but she knows that behind these pictures there are sinister stories of discrimination
How the economic prosperity of the country is a product of exploitation, at the cost of literally breaking human beings. The whole poem is a question: ‘How is this allowed to happen?’ - boy’s back is a question mark
enjamblement, caesura
Scenes From a Documentary History of Mississippi: Flood
part II
4 poems on the theme of memory and the way that history is told and the way its recorded tries to get you to believe a version of the past that obscures. Official history trying to obscure the truth.
Natasha is looking for a history book, evidence. She sees these photos but she knows that behind these pictures there are sinister stories of discrimination
History is washed away, enjambment (waters keeps flowing and eventually drowning everyone and symbolically the truth, aperture shows how wide open the lens is: we look at these images 100 years ago as artifacts, unreal but let’s take a moment to imagine the moment they were taken
enjamblement, caesura
Scenes From a Documentary History of Mississippi: You are Late
+ quote
part II
4 poems on the theme of memory and the way that history is told and the way its recorded tries to get you to believe a version of the past that obscures. Official history trying to obscure the truth.
Natasha is looking for a history book, evidence. She sees these photos but she knows that behind these pictures there are sinister stories of discrimination
it speaks to the delayed arrival of justice or acknowledgment of historical truths
The caesuras and enjambment represents the different stages and steps the little girl needs to take in order to get the basic right to education
Exclusion from history (out of the frame…)
Conclusion to the 4 poems - last two lines:
“But this is history: she can’t linger. She reads the sign that I read: You are Late.”
→ the desire to help change
native guard
+ 3 quotes
10 parts
Story of a man who goes from being a slave to being a Native guard
quotes:
‘now we know to to tie down what we want to keep’
‘slaves in the hands of the master, destiny’
How can some people select the memories they remember, when I think of this my blood boils?
November 1862: freedom, transition, memory (even if he’s fee he wont forget being a slave), the power of writing (now he writes his memories, instead of keeping them on his back as whip scars)
December 1862: bondage, racism (even though now he’s a guard he is still discriminated against), identity, the recording of history (the journal he is writing the poem on used to be a white person’s - crosshatched pattern)
January 1863: destiny ( ‘slaves in the hands of the master, destiny’), endurance (even in pain, he manages to see clearly around him), pain (always withstanding something ever since birth)
January 1863 2nd part: items being washed away on the beach ( ‘now we know to to tie down what we want to keep’ - metaphorically that memory is hard and it takes effort, also a metaphor for slavery), Used to be tied together, now its an emotional connection in order to maintain history
February 1863: ‘Freedom has gotten them captivity’ - dynamics have changed
March 1863: No matter what side of the war you’re on, no matter that you are sad for your dead friend - you have to survive
April 1863: Our personal response to what the colonel’s response: anger (‘unfortunate’, ‘it’d good that they dies, so they go down in history’ )
June 1863: The black bodies were left alone, ‘How can some people select the memories they remember, when I think of this my blood boils? How can some people behave like this when I am deeply bothered by it?’
August 1864 - education (narrator learnt the beauty of the world and how he’s contributing to destroying it), reading and writing (‘man-servant taught to read and write), history (accepting responsibility: noting the names of the dead)
1865: ‘‘the Corps D’Afrique’ - words that take the native from our claim”
Again, The Fields
part II
Themes:
transition and renewal
ownership
land as a source of freedom and identity
Connection to the earth
Resilience and perseverance
The painting of the man harvesting
The gun has been replaced with a harvesting tool.
He is working hard but now he is working for himself, it’s his
enjamblement, caesura, no rhyme
Pastoral
part III
Natasha has so many memories that pull her back to this place, this powerful umbilical cord to Mississippi
The complicated relationship you have with a place.
Even if your home town is problematic you can still miss it
Natasha does not want to be associated with the Fugitive Poets
Regular sonnet features: 14 lines, 10 syllables per line. But it is irregular because it has no rhyme, and it has caesura and enjambment - an irregular sonnet shows the conflicted love she feels
cow sounds, glass of bourbon, backdrop, black-face, bulldozers
miscegenation
part III
Mildred and Richard Loving
She was named after the Natasha in the ‘War and Peace’ - l takes responsibility by looking after wounded soldiers (native guards), has a arc from innocence to maturity
Joe Christmas - biracial but passes as a white man, he’s enigmatic, he’s in search for his identity. Natasha identifies with him- Black american orphan who ends up getting shot.
caesura, enjamblement, each stanza has two verses. each first verse ends in ‘ame’ (name, same) and the second ends with Mississippi.
Thehewey sees herself as a shibboleth for miscegenation.
My Mother Dreams Another Country
part III
maternal impression, motherhood, when you know that your child will be born in a screwed up world, language used to describe ethnicity
The language are unhelpful, creating anxieties
She is worried that her worrying will traumatize the
kid
enjamblement, caesura, no rhyme
Southern History
quote
part III
The way history is treated, the way things are remembered, education
She’s in class
the text books (+Gone With The Wind) promote a lie, none challenges it, the school curriculum forces a superficial treatment of things, packed full of stuff, We’re in a rush to move onto the next thing, we ignore complex discussions
“On screen a slave stood big as life: big mouth,
bucked eyes, our textbook’s grinning proof — a lie
my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I.”
regular with irregular features - 2 lines per stanza, ABAB rhyme but Enjamblement - We’re in a rush to move onto the next thing, we ignore complex discussions
Firstly - The way history is treated, the text books promote a lie.
Secondly (third stanza) - none challenges it.
Third - the school curriculum forces a superficial treatment of things, packed full of stuff
blond
part III
The blond barbie
It never occurred to her to question that the toys didn’t represent her
When you are a child you are not brave enough to celebrate difference, the child wants to be the same as everyone else
no rhyme, inequal stanzas, enhamblement, caezura
southern gothic
part III
Remembering a memory, now knowing what follows. A memory that is contaminated by the murder of the mother.
Family in bed, parentheses, outside labels
the image of the family sinking down, sucked down in society’s prejudice. Society breaks the secure castle, dragged down into the muck of other’s people. You cant protect yourself from society.
what you represent will make a bigger impression of the outside world then what you really are
enjambment, caesura, no rhyme
Incident
part III
struggle to relate traumatic experiences, or choose to relate them in a roundabout manner.
Yet while there was no physical violence, it’s clear that this terrorism inflicted a psychological wound.
Hurricane lamps - their presence implies that the family is surviving a man-made disaster
the lines don’t always repeat word for word; some contain variations the second time around. Here, the variations relate to the poem’s thematic focus on memory and storytelling. That is, the way the lines alter slightly as they repeat mirrors the way memories and stories tend to alter slightly with each repetition.
“We tell the story every year” - at the beginning and end suggesting that some things (like the emotional significance of the memory) don’t change.
caesura, enjambment
Providence
part III
Fragility, our insignificance in the grander scheme of things, fleeting existence
Hurricane Camille in 1969: house seemingly floating on its cinderblocks in the flooded yard. The absence of a foundation beneath them symbolizes the loss of stability and security, both physically and emotionally.
caesura, enjambment
Monument
part III
Healing, If you don’t feel feelings properly, it will get worse and worse
The ants are metaphors for memories - she suppressed them. She hasn’t been giving herself a psychological health check - when they surface she gets loss. She hasn’t attended to her mother’s grave, nor to her feelings about it
The ants keep working without thinking - why hasn’t she done this - processing and working through the emotions
Enjambment, Suggested rhymes - has not emerged fully yet, the process is not done
Elegy for the Native Guard
part III
Legacy (To keep contact with history you have to put effort, listen to every little detail)
In the fourth and final stanza, there is a comparison between what is lost and what remains (graves underneath the water)
even if we have forgotten, God hasn’t
rhyme scheme: ABCCBA
but caesura, enjambment
South
+quote
part III
Psychological exile, legacy, history
There is so much to hate and resent about this place, but she still loves it
She describes her very complicated feeling towards the place by a psychological exile
The poem drops into a rhyme scheme - you cant hide the past, cant pretend that it doesn’t exist
“ I return to Mississippi, state that made a crime
of me – mulatto, half breed – native in my native land, this place they’ll bury me”
they replaced the wild plants with the inoffensive, beautiful, cosmetic plants → sanitising the place
