Elegy for the Native Guards

“South” by Natasha Trethewey (2007)

“South” is the last poem from Trethewey's book Native Guard. It immediately follows “Elegy for the Native Guards,” and the two poems look drastically different on the page. “South” is comprised of 17 couplets (two lines), and the second line of each couplet is indented. Rather than the first-person plural of the tour group in “Elegy for the Native Guards,” “South” uses the first-person “I,” and is about the speaker returning to their “native land” (Line 34): Mississippi. They reflect on their racial identity—“mulatto, half-breed” (Line 33) —and encountering Confederate monuments, like the one in “Elegy for the Native Guards.”

“Monument” by Natasha Trethewey (2007)

This is an audio recording of Trethewey reading “Monument,” the poem that precedes “Elegy for the Native Guards” in Native Guard. “Monument” is about the Trethewey’s mother's grave. This is a much more personal loss for the poet than the loss of the Black Union soldiers who died before she was born. Trethewey is reminded of visiting her mother’s grave by the quotidian (everyday) ants in front of her home because ants were present at the gravesite. Rather than teach readers about collective loss of history as in “Elegy for the Native Guards,” in “Monument,” Trethewey reflects on the emotions her mother’s death evokes.