A Mystifying Silence Poem Analysis

White poets generally do not discuss race in their poems because they do not feel comfortable with the subject as they do not have firsthand experience. In an effort to not insult anyone or appear disingenuous, they avoid the topic all together. Unfortunately, this only perpetuates the issue and makes white poets appear as if they do not recognize African Americans and only care about the white perspective. However, black poets openly discuss racism in their works. They face the discrimination head on in their poems to raise awareness and express their feelings. Both Natahsa Tretheway and Major Jackson were part of a group of black poets called the Dark Room Collective that shared their poems and feelings on the black experience. If

“A Mystifying Silence” states that people are pretending it is better off to have a race-less society when it is clearly not. Race needs to be attended to, even though it is sometimes uncomfortable to bring up. “Writing White” expresses that many people would write about race from personal experience and many whites feel as though they cannot relate. This is why they often are nervous to mention race in their writing. “Whiteness Visible” deals with whites being in a racial fog to distance them from the history of race. This is not good because then it allows the racial issues to be unsettled. All three poems correlate in the sense of race being revealed or not. It is an essential topic to be declared, but only in the correct form. These pieces illustrate how some whites are anxious to speak about race, but they know it is crucial to be brought to

Where the roads, buildings, and monuments are named to honor the Confederacy, where that old flag still hangs, I return to Mississippi, state that made a crime of me—mulatto, half-breed—native in my native land, this place they’ll bury me (23-34).”

Trethewey identifies with the black soldiers feeling of isolation in the war as she was banished in her home town due to her being from a mixed race family. She suffered racism from both the whites and blacks growing up and this poem allows her to express the banishment she felt. She compares her exile to the soldiers who had been slaves. Another one of Trethwey’s themes is based on her mother, who is “colored” as they put it on her birth certificate, who died at young age. “When Ms. Trethewey was 19 and in college, her mother was murdered by her second husband, an abusive man she had divorced, and the effort of trying to recover her mother 's memory is one of Ms. Trethewey 's other major themes.”

(McGrath, page 3). When this tragic death occurred, Trethewey knew she should become a poet and started writing. “”It took me nearly 20 years to find the right language, to write poems