Courtney Dolan

5th Hour HAL

10-11-15

Analysis of Incident
The poet I chose for this project is Natasha Trethewey, a modern writer whose poems I
have enjoyed reading so far. For this analysis I picked one of the poems from her book: Native
Guard. This poem is named Incident. There is a theme that is displayed throughout this poem
and it is Trethewey telling a story a story about a horrible incident.
The title is what sets the tone and the subject of the poem. It lets the reader in a little on
what to expect from the poem, or bring clarity after reading the poem. It is also there so that the
reader can relate back so they can fill in the gaps that may emerge. The title of this poem is
Incident. This title relates to the theme of the poem, telling a story, because it lets the reader
know first off that this poem is about an event. Also, incident has the sort of connotation to it that
makes it seem as though the poem would be about something bad that happened. As a result,
referring to what I mentioned earlier, the reader expects a story about something sad.
Another aspect that the theme relates to is the context in which the poem was written.
Trethewey, a mixed-raced child, was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. Although, when Trethewey
was five years old, her parents divorced. As a result, Trethewey lived in both Atlanta, Georgia
with her mom and New Orleans, Louisiana with her dad. These were places in which the Ku
Klux Klan could have been active when she lived there. Trethewey wrote her poem about a time
when the Ku Klux Klan was causing a disturbance where she lived. In this case, it was a cross
burning.
These next two aspects that express the theme of telling a story overlap one another. The
two aspects are the intended audience of the poem and the message to the audience. The intended
audience of this poem is the American people. This applies to the American people because of
the strong influence of the Ku Klux Klan on the poem. This relates back to the story theme, and

Courtney Dolan
5th Hour HAL
10-11-15

also helps to explain the message, because I believe Trethewey was telling this story to inform
the nave younger people of America about the terrible experience that she had and what it was
like to have to deal with the KKK.
The tone was heavily affected by the storytelling theme. The tone of this poem was more
of a matter-of-fact tone. It was as if Trethewey was downplaying the event that took place and
yet it only exemplified its importance and significance in her life. When Trethewey writes,
how we peered from the windows, shades drawn-/though nothing really happened, the phrase
nothing really happened, /the charred grass green again, shows how she lessened the
significance of the event.
However, at the very beginning and end of the poem, Trethewey talks about how we tell
the story every year, we is perhaps the community in which she lived at the time. She and her
community tell the story annually so they never forget that day, to remember the adversity
theyve overcome. This tone is appropriate for addressing this poems theme because stories are
matter-of-fact from the authors perspective, its the characters and what happens to the
characters in the story give it life. The people in the poem hunkered down, drew the shades and
avoided being seen by the Klansmen and the wicks trembling in their fonts of oil are good
examples. This gives off a tone of fear but Trethewey tells it in a way that makes it seem
unimportant, but in fact it is an influential occurrence in her life.
The most prominent stylistic choice that the poet made in this poem was her use of
repetition. This use of repetition also ties in her choices in line breaks. An example of repetition
would be when she uses the phrase: We tell the story every year. She uses this at the very
beginning and end of the poem to bring it full circle. She uses each phrase in the poem at least
twice and they usually are within three lines of one another. The repetition in this poem is also

Courtney Dolan
5th Hour HAL
10-11-15

applicable to the line breaks. There are 20 lines in this poem, 11 different words at the end of the
lines and 9 of those 11 words are repeated twice as the end of a line. So, a total of 18 of the 20
words are used more than once, while two words, then and again, are used only once.
Trethewey used repetition at the end of her lines to emphasize the lines in which these words
were contained. This repetition and use of line breaks relates back to the theme of storytelling
because when people tell stories, especially when these stories are orally recited (the Odyssey),
they use repetition in order to drive home the meaning or message of the story (informing the
young people of America about the ordeal she went through and what it was like to have the
KKK around).
Throughout her poem Incident, Natasha Trethewey told a story about an incident that
occurred that changed her life. Within this poem, Trethewey used repetition to emphasize the
importance of certain parts of the story and to show how much significance this incident had
on her by remembering the story annually.