Natasha Trethewey

Gulfport native Natasha Trethewey (born 1966), a poet who explores race and Deep South culture issues, is a former Poet Laureate for the United States and Mississippi. Trethewey turned to poetry to make sense of the murder of her mother when Trethewey was 19. Combining traditional forms and free verse in her writings, she gained recognition in 2000 by releasing her first book, Domestic Work. The collection, which delves into the lives of African American women and men in the South, received the inaugural Cave Canem Prize, honoring the first published book by a Black poet. Trethewey won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2007 for Native Guard, which tells the story of an all-Black Union Army unit composed of former slaves during the Civil War. Other works include Bellocq’s Ophelia and Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A longtime creative writing and poetry professor, Trethewey has held posts at Northwestern and Emory universities.