Pulitzer Prize-winning Natasha Trethewey was named US poet laureate on Thursday, an annual honor aimed at promoting poetry among the American public.
Trethewey penned three poetry collections, including the “Native Guard” that won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Her other work includes “Bellocq’s Ophelia” and “Domestic Work,” as well as the nonfiction “Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”
The nomination by the US Library in Congress makes the 46-year-old English and creative writing professor at Atlanta’s Emory University the 19th poet to be picked for the post.
Her predecessors include fellow Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Penn Warren and Joseph Brodsky, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“Her poems dig beneath the surface of history, personal or communal, from childhood or from a century ago, to explore the human struggles that we all face,” Librarian of Congress James Billington said in a statement.
Trethewey is the first African-American since 1993 to win the title, and the first from the southern region of the United States, according to the New York Times.
She will take up her duties on September 13 with a reading of her work at the Library of Congress.
