Thrall (7 page)

“On Captivity” also appeared in
American Poet,
Fall 2008, and
in
Best American Poetry 2008,
edited by Charles Wright and David
Lehman. “Elegy” also appeared in
Best American Poetry 2011,
edited
by Kevin Young and David Lehman. “The Americans (1. Dr. Samuel
Adolphus Cartwright on Dissecting the White Negro, 1851)” will appear
in
Best American Poetry 2012,
edited by Mark Doty and David Lehman.
Best American Poetry
is published annually by Scribner.

My gratitude as well to the Emory University Research Committee
and to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the
Department of African American Studies at Yale University for fellowships
that allowed me time to complete this book. For their thoughtful
comments and support, I am indebted to Elizabeth Alexander, Claudia
Emerson, Ben George, Shara McCallum, Rob McQuilkin, Rhett Trull,
C. Dale Young, Kevin Young, and—most of all—Michael Collier. To
Brett Gadsden, my deepest thanks.

 

NATASHA TRETHEWEY is the current U.S. Poet Laureate and is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.
Native Guard
, her third collection of poetry, received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.
Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
was published in 2010.