Trethewey named U.S. Poet Laureate

Franklin alumna and 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey has been named the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, the Library of Congress announced.

Trethewey, 46, who has been the Poet Laureate of Mississippi since January, says that she’s excited and nervous and that “the position of the laureate is one where you can really do significant things.”

One role of the poet is to record “across time and space what speaks to us about an historical moment and people’s responses to the historical moment in which they live. Poetry can do that. It can connect us to people distant and different from us. It can remind us of how we are alike.”

“Natasha Trethewey’s poetry and nonfiction is marked by history and personal experience, and her work offers entry to yet another dimension of the American experience,” said Hugh Ruppersburg, interim dean of the Franklin College. “She has already brought distinction to the university and the state through her writings, the Pulitzer Prize, and inclusion in the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. She is a most deserving selection as U.S. poet laureate. On behalf of the Franklin College, I congratulate her for this singular honor.”