History Lesson

“History Lesson” by Natasha Trethewey is written in six stanzas—five tercets (stanzas of three lines) and one couplet (stanza of two lines), for a total of 17 lines. It is free verse, unrhymed and without formal meter, composed from a first-person point of view. The title of the poem suggests the subject will be historical, which is to say it will be about something that happened in the past. It also indicates there is something to be learned or at least that there is an opportunity to learn. The first line of the poem tells the reader that this is an ekphrastic piece—it is a poem inspired by an image, which is, in this case, a photograph of the speaker as a young child: “I am four in this photograph” (Line 1).

The child stands “on a wide strip of Mississippi beach” (Line 2), posed confidently with her “hands on […] hips” (Line 3). She’s a kid on the beach in a floral bikini, digging her toes in the sand as if to root there. Here, the speaker draws the reader’s attention to other elements of the composition of the snapshot—the sunshine as it plays on the water, which moves in its “tidal rush” (Line 7).