Charting the intersections of public and personal history, Thrall explores the historical, cultural, and social forces that determine the roles to which a mixed-race daughter and her white father are consigned. In a brilliant series of poems about the taxonomies of mixed unions, Trethewey creates a fluent and vivid backdrop to her own familial predicament. While tropes about captivity, bondage, knowledge, and enthrallment permeate the collection, Trethewey unflinchingly examines our shared past by reflecting on her history of small estrangements and by confronting the complexities of race and identity in America. AUTHOR: Natasha Trethewey was the 2012 poet laureate of the United States, and Native Guard, her third collection of poetry, received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.
