Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey
Trethewey reading at the Library of Congress in 2013
Born	(1966-04-26) April 26, 1966 (age 50) Gulfport, Mississippi, U.S.
Occupation	Poet, professor
Nationality	American
Alma mater	AB, University of Georgia, MA, Hollins University, MFA, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Genre	Poetry
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2007 Poet Laureate of Mississippi 2012 United States Poet Laureate 2012, 2014 Lamont Poet at Phillips Exeter Academy 2012
Spouse	Brett Gadsden

Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and she is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

She is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she also directs the Creative Writing Program.

Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, on April 26, 1966, Confederate Memorial Day, to Eric Trethewey and Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, who were married illegally at the time of her birth, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws with Loving v. Virginia. Her birth certificate noted the race of her mother as "colored", and the race of her father as “Canadian”.

Trethewey's mother, a social worker, was part of the inspiration for Native Guard, which is dedicated to her memory. Trethewey's parents divorced when she was young and Turnbough was murdered in 1985 by her second husband, whom she had recently divorced, when Trethewey was 19 years old. Recalling her reaction to her mother's death, she said, "that was the moment when I both felt that I would become a poet and then immediately afterward felt that I would not. I turned to poetry to make sense of what had happened".

Natasha Trethewey's father was also a poet; he was a professor of English at Hollins University.

Trethewey earned her B.A. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. In May 2010 Trethewey delivered the commencement speech at Hollins University and was awarded an honorary doctorate. She had previously received an honorary degree from Delta State University in her native Mississippi.