Pulitzer Winner Natasha Trethewey Looks ‘Beyond Katrina’

The latest work by Natasha Trethewey, Beyond Katrina, is about how to cope with the threats and consequences of natural disasters from the Gulf Coast including her family, generation to generation. Together with personal records.

"Strangely, I had not seen the history of Arashi until Hurricane Katrina of Camille came out - and there was the possibility that other people could exist at any time.

Through the combination of poetry and prose, the Pulitzer Prize winners have explored the experiences of her brothers and her grandmother to master the greater stories of the Gulf.

Her home Bayport was destroyed by Katrina. The shotgun of her neighbor who was born and raised was destroyed

"There are too many things not coming back," Trethewey told in a recent phone interview. "My history seems to disappear from these big gaps, all these buildings are my past landmarks."

Trethewey's grandmother was also born in the same area of ​​North Bay Harbor. She experienced Hurricane Camille, but she was obliged to leave home after Hurricane Katrina and never came back. She died in Atlanta before the opportunity to return to Bay.

Prior to Katrina 's attack, her younger brother Joe was just beginning to calm down. He refurbished the family shotgun house and used them as lease management. After the storm, they lost their homes and Joe worked hard to find a job.

"At first, there was nothing to do except to watch," Trethewey wrote in her poem "Watcher". "A few days ago, before my truck arrived, my older brother sat on a pouch and saw it before work or cleaning."

After Hurricane Katrina, Joe's embarrassed feeling was a problem. Natasha was awarded the Pulitzer Prize with the book "Earthguard", but Joe was arrested for delivering cocaine and sent to prison. His struggle is the source of inspiration for the latest work of Trethewey.

"Of course, the story most familiar to me is the situation of my brothers and our closest families," Trethewey said.

I can not comment on the important stories of all people affected by Katrina, Trethewey hopes that by telling this story it will stimulate more stories and pay more attention to them .

Natasha Trethewey is a writer of several poetry collections including "Pulitzer Prize" Earth Guard. Landscape after hurricane. She recently recorded her experiences with her brother, Joel imprisoned for selling cocaine, in the verse series of verses, "Virginia Quarterly Review" and "Studio 360 and Cart" of multimedia cooperation Part 2. Andersen called "In Verse" and was created in 2009 by Radio Producer Lu Olkowski and Ted Genoways, VQR editor.

For Natasha Trethewey, after Hurricane Katrina, she visited the hometown of North Gulfport, Michigan, became a powerful multimedia project combining poetry and photography. This project, called Congregation, collaborates with Virginia Quarterly Review and Studio 360 Beyond Katrina: The second part of meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Tretheway discussed this project on New Yorkers' bookshelf this week. Many people commented on how fragile I think in these poems. This is the most important thing I learned. When I went there to do this project I thought it was not difficult because I wrote about my hometown and its people, history and my family - I always think this is an insider I think. But this time, after receiving the Pulitzer Prize my life experienced tremendous change and directed such attention. .

Another writer of the Mississippi Bay that influenced my research was the American poet prize winner Natasha Tresway. In "Beyond Katrina: Meditation in the Mississippi Bay", Trethewey looked at strengthening the coastline of the Mississippi Bay by the storm like Hayden. Trethewey also explores memory and cultural geography, with a focus on the negative memories of Beauvoir of her family. Trethewey's work is the first example of memory that I discovered that Popov's dominant story was overturned.