Enthralled on Poetry Friday

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I have been reading my copy of Thrall by poet laureate Natasha Trethaway. Here are a few favorite bits to whet your appetite. Poetry lovers, you need this book!

More Poetry Friday with Anastasia Suen at Booktalking.


from "Taxonomy"

The canvas is a leaden sky
   behind them, heavy
with words, gold letters inscribing
   an equation of blood--


from "Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus; or, The Mulata"

She is the vessels on the table before her:
the copper pot tipped toward us, the withe pitcher
clutched in her hand, the black one edged in red
and upside-down. Bent over, she is the mortar,

from "Help, 1968"

when my mother took me for walks,
she was mistaken again and again
for my maid. Years later she told me
she'd say I was her daughter, and each time
strangers would stare in disbelief, then
empty the change from their pockets. Now

from "Geography"

my father and I walk the rails south
toward town. More than twenty years
gone, he's come back to see this place,
recollect what he's lost. What he recalls
of my childhood is here. We find it
in the brambles of blackberry, the coins
flattened on the tracks. We can't help it--

from "Rotation"

Once, he watched over me as I dreamed.
   How small I was. Back then,
he was already turning to go, waning
   like the moon that night--my father.