Native Guard

by Natasha Trethewey Narrated by Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant, January LaVoy, Nicole Banks Long, Tyrone Jackson

Overview

Based on Natasha Trethewey's collection of poems, The Alliance Theatre's production of Native Guard is both an elegy to her mother and a journey into Mississippi's Civil War history. In poetry and song, she reflects on her mother's passing while contemplating the former slaves who became soldiers in a regiment known as the Native Guard. Trethewey's work was the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

This recording was produced with the generous support of The Poetry Foundation.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording, starring: January LaVoy as The Poet, Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant as the Native Guard, and featuring Nicole Banks Long on vocals and Tyrone Jackson on piano.

The Alliance Theatre production was originally directed by Susan V. Booth. Offsite Producer for The Alliance Theatre, Donya Washington. Composer and Music Director, Tyrone Jackson. Original Sound Design, Clay Benning. Production Assistant, Amanda Allen. Senior Radio Producer, Ronn Lipkin. Recording Engineer, Erick Cifuentes. Associate Producer and Studio Production Coordinator, Mark Holden. Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood.

Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey, used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. As conceived and originally produced by the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia. Susan V. Booth, Artistic Director. Mike Schleifer, Managing Director.

Editorial Reviews

NOVEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

The Alliance Theatre of Atlanta has created a dramatic version of Trethewey's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, and it is a marvelous presentation of the poetry. January LaVoy is The Poet, reading the works that Trethewey wrote for and about her mother, and Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant is The Native Guard, representing the men who traded service in the Union army for freedom from slavery. Both narrators have a deep understanding of the poems they read and the dramatic skill to convey them. The music that punctuates the performance is well chosen and well performed, adding still more to the emotional experience. Trethewey, who was twice the U.S. Poet Laureate, is a fine reader of her own work, but this presentation has found a way to go an interpretive step further. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Trethewey's style is reserved, even cautious, though her subjects are emotionally charged, even violent. This creates an interesting dichotomy, especially in poems such as "Pastoral" with its touchy image of Trethewey confronting the great white Southern poets -- Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren and others -- while in blackface. Though this is her third book, Trethewey is still perfecting her voice and may have only scratched the surface of her remarkable talent.
— The washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Trethewey (Domestic Work) draws on the life of her deceased mother and on the history of Mississippi, where the poet and her mother's family grew up, to limn a multiracial South and her own multiracial heritage. One poem tries to preserve her mother's memory ("certain the sounds I make/ are enough to call someone home"); the title poem's set of linked sonnets, where the last line of each one becomes the first line of the next, presents black Union soldiers who "keep/ white men as prisoners-rebel soldiers,/ would-be masters." A pantoun remembers the night Trethewey's family discovered a burning cross on her lawn; the concluding poem condenses the poet's mixed-and compelling-feelings about "Mississippi, state that made a crime// of me-mulatto, half-breed, native-/ in my native land, this place they'll bury me." (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Inaugural winner of the Cave Caen Poetry Prize, Trethewey uses her third collection to explore Southern history, focusing her steadfast prose on African Americans mustered into the Union Army. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

From the Publisher

"Elegiac...eloquently told...profoundly moving...Trethewey is clearly a poet to savor." —Maxine Kumin

"In a very few years Natasha Trethewey has created a small body of nearly flawless poetry." —Rodney Jones

"[Natasha Tretheway’s] voice is a rare, beautiful gift to the reader." —William Ferris, Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History, UNC Chapel Hill

"Natasha Trethewey serves our profound need for that rare thing—artistically fine Civil War poetry...She is our Native Guard." —David Madden, Louisiana State University, author of Sharpshooter: A Novel of the Civil War —

NOVEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

The Alliance Theatre of Atlanta has created a dramatic version of Trethewey's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, and it is a marvelous presentation of the poetry. January LaVoy is The Poet, reading the works that Trethewey wrote for and about her mother, and Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant is The Native Guard, representing the men who traded service in the Union army for freedom from slavery. Both narrators have a deep understanding of the poems they read and the dramatic skill to convey them. The music that punctuates the performance is well chosen and well performed, adding still more to the emotional experience. Trethewey, who was twice the U.S. Poet Laureate, is a fine reader of her own work, but this presentation has found a way to go an interpretive step further. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170364688
Publisher:	L.A. Theatre Works
Publication date:	10/15/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos